Guilty: The Collapse of Criminal Justice - Hardcover

Rothwax, Harold J.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 067943867X ISBN 13: 9780679438670

Publisher: Random House, 1996

Synopsis

Longtime New York State Supreme Court Justice Harold J. Rothwax now puts our criminal justice system on trial. His verdict: Guilty. In his view, we are fast becoming a nation of bad laws, in which criminals and defense attorneys hide behind a morass of poorly conceived statues, procedures, and technicalities that keeps them from resolving the paramount question at hand: Did the accused commit the crime?

About this title

About the Author

Harold J. Rothwax is a judge on the New York State Supreme Court.

From the Inside Flap

York State Supreme Court Justice Harold J. Rothwax now puts our criminal justice system on trial. His verdict: Guilty. In his view, we are fast becoming a nation of bad laws, in which criminals and defense attorneys hide behind a morass of poorly conceived statues, procedures, and technicalities that keeps them from resolving the paramount question at hand: Did the accused commit the crime?

Reviews

Ex-defense attorney Rothwax is known as one of the toughest trial court judges in New York City, and he remains incensed that villains go free because of what he considers not-so-defensible legal protections. Some of his arguments are bold?repudiate the Miranda decision, which requires defendants to be advised of their rights; limit suspects' right to a lawyer during the investigative phase?and assume a good faith on the part of the police that many would deny. Other procedural arguments, born of experience, seem more logical: reform the rules requiring a speedy trial, which affect the prosecution far more than the defense; to prevent defendants from changing their stories after gaining "discovery" access to the prosecution's case, require them to file a sealed envelope containing their version of the case?to be unsealed if they take the stand. Like the rest of this brief book, Rothwax's suggestion that jury verdicts of 10-2 be allowed surely will become part of the debate over our court system in these post-O.J. days. Author tour.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

" Did you do it?" Judge Rothwax yearns to ask criminal defendants appearing before him. But he never gets to, because lawyers ask instead whether the search was proper, the defendant was read his Miranda rights, the confession was uncoerced, and the accused is getting a speedy trial. The result, Rothwax believes after 25 years of presiding over such devotion to procedure, is that truth has become an orphan of justice. Rothwax minces no words in this populistic castigation of the so-called administration of justice, whose malaise he illustrates in the anecdotal mode. The number of murderers let loose on technicalities is merely the most grievous instance of the triumph of rigid proceduralism over common sense; Rothwax argues that the whole system is so rule-encrusted that each stage, from investigation to incarceration, is more lottery than truth-seeking, because the police, prosecuters, and even experienced judges like himself can't predict what an appellate tribunal will deem reversible error. Rothwax's reforms--like repealing Miranda will irritate his fellow ACLUnionists, but their aspersions can't impede this mad-as-hell manifesto from a probable ascent up the best-seller ladder. Gilbert Taylor

Edition details

• Publisher: Random House
• Publication date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 067943867X
• ISBN 13: 9780679438670
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 238