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Rating: 
Summary: The Frightening Reality of our Criminal Justice System
Review: Judge Rothwax has masterfully documented the reality of a criminal justice system gone mad. His examples of how the criminal element in our society can use the system to escape justice is frightening. As a former police officer I witnessed suspects leaving the police station before I was finished with my arrest reports. Judge Rothwax gives examples of how difficult it is for a police officer to know if what he is doing is even legal on any given day. This book gives disturbing true stories of how the court system has chosen to ignor the question of "is he guilty," and instead focus with how evidence was gathered. This book is a must read for anyone even slightly interested in our justice system.
Rating:
Summary: Astonishing and Frightening
Review: This book pulls no punches and contains no fancy words. Harold Rothwax tells it like it is....When the criminal justice system fails, and the obviously and often admittedly guilty go free to wreak more havoc on innocent citizens, we should feel outraged... and I'd guess that we do, when we hear about it as we do infrequently. But the sympathy extended to the perpetrators of violent crimes is both misplaced and as wrong as the crimes themselves. Rothwax, a judge, sees these decisions made routinely, as he deals with their aftermath. He is outraged. He is beyond outraged. He makes a compelling case for a modification in our criminal justice system. Criminal juries shouldn't need 100% agreement to deliver a verdict, which they already don't need in civil cases. One lone kook shouldn't hold up what's obvious to a clear majority. He suggests forgetting Miranda... if someone is screaming confessions, it's a CONFESSION. What a lot of effort, time, and money those confessions save! Getting criminals off on technicalities -- especially technicalities that lawyers search for painstakingly with the sole goal of getting their clients off -- is a perverse and morally reprehensible function of the court, and it should be inadmissable when the parties involved behaved with logic and discretion to the satisfaction of the court. The cases that Rothwax cites, cases in which innocent adults and children suffered at the hands of a meticulous and ill-advised court, will break your heart and make you scream for justice. For this is a book about justice. It is not a book about law. Unfortunately, the two diverge more than the American public would like to acknowledge.
Rating: 
Summary: An Eye-Opening, if Apocolyptic Look At the Justice System
Review: While almost all would agree that the American judicial system has its flaws, Judge Harold Rothwax proposes some of the most drastic changes to the system I have encountered. If Judge Rothwax's experiences in the New York City courts have transformed him from a card-carrying ACLU member to a staunch advocate for the revocation of Miranda and search-and-seizure laws, then I am in fear of what truly occurs in our courtrooms.
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