In The Blogs
ALTERNET: THE SEEDY UNDERPINNINGS OF OUR JUSTICE SYSTEM.
Posted November 2, 2009.
It's getting harder and harder to exercise your legal rights if you aren't well to do. ...Read full excerpt in blog.
READER COMMENT: POWELLs. Ellen Moskowitz, November 30, 2009
The first two words say it all; and probably should be larger in Graphic treatment then the sub-heading. "IN -Justice" is the day-to day result of years of over-crowded court systems and bureacratic appointments, plus under-funding and a lack of visibility compared to other causes that receive far more press.
YELLOW DOG: THEY GAVE US A REPUBLIC…
In Ordinary Injustice: How America Holds Court (Metropolitan; $27), legal writer and erstwhile law professor Amy Bach uncovers a clubby system in which overworked lawyers and law enforcement officers are often more loyal to each other ...
ALTERNET: Hard to Believe: 73 US Kids Sentenced to Life Without Parole at 14 ...
AlterNet - San Francisco,CA,USA
"The only physical evidence was a fingerprint lifted from a plaque in the bedroom, which could have been made during the burglary," wrote Amy Bach in Slate ...
DOUBLE XX'S BOOK OF THE WEEK: "ORDINARY INJUSTICE"
"Ordinary Injustice, by writer and Stanford law graduate Amy Bach, is one of the best portrayals I've read of the everyday, mundane, and yet utterly paralyzing weaknesses of state criminal justice systems"
THE OPEN CASE: Q AND A WITH AMY BACH
"In her crusading book Ordinary Injustice, lawyer Amy Bach examines this trend and reveals the nation's criminal justice system 'so deeply compromised that it constitutes a menace to the people it is designed to serve.' The book is detailed and sweeping and ultimately a massive indictment of the nation's judical process"
LEGAL HISTORY BLOG: "ORDINARY INJUSTICE: HOW AMERICA HOLDS COURT"
"But Bach has done something different: shown us the reality of the criminal justice process in microscopic, human detail. In different places around the country she watched what went on in courtrooms. Her accounts of what she saw should open others' eyes to unwelcome reality. It is a revealing and important book."
PICKS OF THE WEEK: ORDINARY INJUSTICE BY AMY BACH
"My chief complaint is that I wish the book had been longer, because the 250-odd pages of carefully reported and researched accounts into exactly how the American justice system fails far too many people are absolutely brilliant."
CAMPAIGN FOR THE AMERICAN READER: AMY BACH'S "ORDINARY INJUSTICE" PG. 99 TEST
"Going beyond the usual explanations of bad apples and meager funding, Bach identifies an assembly-line approach that rewards shoddiness and sacrifices defendants to keep the court calendar moving, and she exposes the collusion between judge, prosecutor, and defense that puts the interests of the system above the obligation to the people."
WASHINGTON CITY PAPER: ORDINARY INJUSTICE
"Bach, a lawyer as well as a reporter, demonstrates with one appalling anecdote after another that defense attorneys, prosecutors, and judges often consider themselves too overburdened and harried to attend to constitutional niceties like staying awake. Bach illustrates these problems by presenting three case studies—an overwhelmed and deficient defense attorney for the poor, a prosecutor who avoided trials (especially for certain classes of crimes deemed too dicey, such as domestic violence), and a show trial with racial overtones in which two boys in Chicago were railroaded for a heinous crime they did not commit."
CRIME & FEDERALISM: ORDINARY INJUSTICE: HOW AMERICA HOLDS COURT
"Amy Bach has written a promising book entitled Ordinary Injustice: How America Holds Court. I haven't had time to review it myself, but Scott Greenfeld seems to be a fan. Do you need any further endorsement?"
SIMPLE JUSTICE A NEW YORK CRIMINAL DEFENSE BLOG: BOOK PREVIEW
"When I'm done, I'll write a proper review, but I'm just so darned excited about the book that I want to post something immediately. This is the first book I've ever read that is steely clear that the failure of our the criminal justice system isn't found in the spectacular but the mundane. It's our routine, the acceptance of doing things the way they've always been done, moving people through the system like cattle and shrugging off the details that distinguish justice from the assembly line."
JEFF KELLY LOWENSTEIN: KARYN SPENCER'S CORONER'S REPORT, AMY BACH'S ORDINARY INJUSTICE
"Bach spent eight years researching her work, each section of which is set in a different part of the United States. By moving from small-town Georgia to upstate New York to Mississippi and Chicago, she effectively illustrates the problem’s national scope. Bach’s book also impressively demonstrates that these systemic failures go beyond the work of an individual with lots of power and plenty of bad intentions."
SAN DIEGO EDUCATION REPORT BLOG: ORDINARY INJUSTICE
"ORDINARY INJUSTICE: How America Holds Court (Metropolitan Books/September 1, 2009) goes well beyond one particular injustice, one specific court, or one aspect of the legal system. Instead, Bach conducts a sweeping investigation that moves from small-town Georgia to upstate New York, from Chicago to Mississippi, recounting fascinating stories..."
PROBONO.NET: Q AND A
"Lazy or overwhelmed public defenders. Wrongful convictions. Abuse of power. Amy Bach, a former staff reporter for The American Lawyer and a Stanford law school graduate, discusses it all in her new book, Ordinary Injustice: How America Holds Court (Henry Holt, September 2009). After spending seven years in criminal courts in Georgia, New York, Illinois, and Mississippi, she chronicles a judicial system that fails not only those most in need, but society at large."
Read Full Q and A
RAINER STEINHOFF: BOOK REVIEW IN PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
"Lawyer and journalist Bach [pictured, left] exposes a litany of failures and systematic shoddiness at the core of the American criminal justice system that goes unchecked because the people affected tend to be poor, minorities or both, and because problems are so pervasive that they have become invisible to defenders, prosecutors and judges alike. Bach sees this blindness as a product of a public that cares little for the rights of the accused so long as someone—anyone—is convicted and a courthouse community where prosecutor, defending attorney and judge share a commitment to maintaining order, even at the expense of justice."
FORENSIC PHOTOSHOP: ORDINARY INJUSTICE
"Studying leadership and working in within the court system, it was easy to picture the book's examples. I found myself examining the work that I've done, making sure that I wasn't guilty of some of the same failings described in the book. Though I'm sure that many will be uncomfortable with her penetrating, mater-of-fact style - I can't see the book being written any other way."
NEW READS BLOGSPOT: ORDINARY INJUSTICE
"Full of gripping human stories, sharp analyses, and a crusader’s sense of urgency, Ordinary Injustice is a major reassessment of the health of the nation’s courtrooms."
SIMPLE JUSTICE: DEATH TO THE STATES, FEDERALIZE THE BAR?
"It would be far more understandable if the practice variations were limited to state courts, but they exist in federal court as well. It never ceases to amaze me how different the quirks of local practice can be from district to district, circuit to circuit. Between local time rules, and just the ordinary routine taken for granted in any particular district, one can immediately tell who's a regular and who's a carpet-bagger. Mind you, the carpet-bagger may be a top flight lawyer, and perhaps brings a freedom from the local "ordinary injustice" that tends to infect regular practitioners, but it's clear that "he's not from around here."
NASGA: ORDINARY INJUSTICE: HOW AMERICA HOLDS COURT
"Bach is quick to say that this is not a book about villains, about lawyers and judges who willfully subvert the pursuit of justice. It is about the natural human inclination to avoid conflict."
“It takes a community of legal professionals to let a sleeping lawyer sleep.”
