This historical narrative of the Salem witch trials takesits dialogue from actual trial records but applies modernpsychiatric knowledge to the witchcraft hysteria. Starkey's senseof drama also vividly recreates the atmosphere of pity and terrorthat fostered the evil and suffering of this human tragedy.
David Boies, the star trial lawyer in a country obsessedwith legal drama, proves endlessly fascinating in this compulsivelyreadable account of his extraordinary career.A man of almostsuperhuman accomplishment, Boies argued a string of headline-makingcases before being catapulted to international prominence when herepresented Al Gore before the Supreme Court in Bush v. Gore. Brash, reckless, and prideful, he is also charming,charismatic, unerringly articulate in the courtroom, and supremelycomfortable in the public eye. Legal journalist Karen Donovan,herself a lawyer, had unprecedented access to Boies for nearly twoyears. In v. Goliath she gives us a scintillating chronicleof the legal dramas in which Boies has played a crucial role and ariveting, up-close portrait of a singularly gifted lawyer.
This 2004 book is a comparative study of the American legaldevelopment in the mid-nineteenth century. Focusing on Illinois andVirginia, supported by observations from six additional states, thebook traces the crucial formative moment in the development of anAmerican system of common law in northern and southern courts. Theprocess of legal development, and the form the basic analyticalcategories of American law came to have, are explained as theproducts of different responses to the challenge of new industrialtechnologies, particularly railroads. The nature of those responseswas dictated by the ideologies that accompanied the social,political, and economic orders of the two regions. American commonlaw, ultimately, is found to express an emerging model ofcitizenship, appropriate to modern conditions. As a result, theprocess of legal development provides an illuminating perspectiveon the character of American political thought in a formativeperiod of the nation.
Computers and the Law provides readers with an introduction tothe legal issues associated with computing – particularly in themassively networked context of the Internet. Assuming no previousknowledge of the law or any special knowledge of programming orcomputer science, this textbook offers undergraduates of alldisciplines and professionals in the computing industry anunderstanding of basic legal principles and an awareness of thepeculiarities associated with legal issues in cyberspace. This isnot a law school casebook, but rather a variety of carefullychosen, relevant cases presented in redacted form. The full casesare available on an ancillary Web site. The pervasiveness ofcomputing in modern society has generated numerous legalambiguities. This book introduces readers to the fundamentalworkings of the law in physical space and suggests the opportunityto create new types of laws with nontraditional goals.
This is primarily a textbook for graduate and upper-levelundergraduate students of law. However, practising lawyers andpolicy-makers who are looking for an introduction to WTO law willalso find it invaluable. The book covers both the institutional andsubstantive law of the WTO. While the treatment of the law is oftenquite detailed, the main aim of this textbook is to make clear thebasic principles and underlying logic of WTO law and the worldtrading system. Each section contains questions and assignments, toallow students to assess their understanding and develop usefulpractical skills. At the end of each chapter there is a helpfulsummary, as well as an exercise on specific, true-to-lifeinternational trade problems.
On June 28, 1972 in a South Bronx subway station, John Skagen,a white off-duty policeman on his way home, suddenly and withoutapparent provocation, ordered James Richardson, a black man on hisway to work, to get against the wall and put his hands up.Richardson had a gun, and the two exchanged shots. In the meleethat followed, Skagen was fatally wounded by a cop who rushed tothe scene. In the ensuing trial, William Kunstler handledRichardson's defense and the author of this book, then assistantdistrict attorney, prosecuted the case. Here is a first-hand,behind-the-scenes account of every step of the proceedings.
This 2005 book argues that Europeanization and globalizationhave led to ever-more intensive legalization at transnationallevel. What accounts for compliance beyond the nation-state? Theauthors tackle this question by comparing compliance withregulations that have been formulated in a very similar way atdifferent levels of governance. They test compliance with rules atthe national level, at the regional level (EU), and at a globallevel (WTO), finding that in fact the EU has higher levels ofcompliance than both international and national rules. The authorsargue that this is because the EU has a higher level oflegalization, combined with effective monitoring mechanisms andsanctions. In this respect it seems that the European Union hasindeed achieved a high level of legalization and compliance, thoughthe authors add that this achievement does not settle the relatedqueries with the legitimacy of transnational governance andlaw.
In this amazing story of high stakes competition between twotitans, Richard Moran shows how the electric chair developed notout of the desire to be more humane but through an effort by onenineteenth-century electric company to discredit the other. In 1882, Thomas Edison ushered in the “age of electricity” whenhe illuminated Manhattan’s Pearl Street with his direct current(DC) system. Six years later, George Westinghouse lit up Buffalowith his less expensive alternating current (AC). The two menquickly became locked in a fierce rivalry, made all the morecomplicated by a novel new application for their product: theelectric chair. When Edison set out to persuade the state of NewYork to use Westinghouse’s current to execute condemned criminals,Westinghouse fought back in court, attempting to stop the firstelectrocution and keep AC from becoming the “executioner’scurrent.” In this meticulously researched account of the ensuinglegal battle and the horribly botched first execution, Moran r
From prosecuting (and defending) murderers in the Bronx tohandling the public and private problems of Manhattan’s elite, Mouthpiece recounts the colorful adventures of New YorkCity’s ultimate legal operator. “In the pages before us, the Counselor tells a saga’s worth oftales of the city. As the saying goes, he’s got a million ofthem.” — Tom Wolfe, from his Introduction Edward Hayes is that unusual combination: the likable lawyer, onewho could have stepped off the stages of Guys and Dolls or Chicago . Mouthpiece is his story—an irreverent,entertaining, and revealing look at the practice of law in moderntimes and a social and political anatomy of New York City. Itrecounts Hayes’s childhood in the tough Irish sections of Queensand his eventual escape to the University of Virginia and then toColumbia Law School. Not at all white-shoe-firm material, Hayesheaded to the hair-raising, crime-ridden South Bronx of themidseventies—first as a homicide prosecutor and then as a defenseattor