Sign up to save your podcasts
Or
Share Stephen Bright and James Kwak, "The Fear of Too Much Justice: Race, Poverty, and the Persistence of Inequality in the Criminal Courts" (The New Press, 2023)
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Or
Stephen Bright and James Kwak, "The Fear of Too Much Justice: Race, Poverty, and the Persistence of Inequality in the Criminal Courts" (The New Press, 2023)
Glenn Ford, a Black man, spent thirty years on Louisiana’s death row for a crime he did not commit. He was released in 2014—and given twenty dollars—when prosecutors admitted they did not have a case against him.
Ford’s trial was a travesty. One of his court-appointed lawyers specialized in oil and gas law and had never tried a case. The other had been out of law school for only two years. They had no funds for investigation or experts. The prosecution struck all the Black prospective jurors to get the all-white jury that sentenced Ford to death.
In The Fear of Too Much Justice: Race, Poverty, and the Persistence of Inequality in the Criminal Courts (The New Press, 2023), legendary death penalty lawyer Stephen B. Bright and legal scholar James Kwak offer a heart-wrenching overview of how the criminal legal system fails to live up to the values of equality and justice. The book ranges from poor people squeezed for cash by private probation companies because of trivial violations to people executed in violation of the Constitution despite overwhelming evidence of intellectual disability or mental illness. They also show examples from around the country of places that are making progress toward justice.
With a foreword by Bryan Stevenson, who worked for Bright at the Southern Center for Human Rights and credits him for “[breaking] down the issues with the death penalty simply but persuasively,” The Fear of Too Much Justice offers a timely, trenchant, firsthand critique of our criminal courts and points the way toward a more just future.
Omari Averette-Phillips is a History Educator and an Independent Scholar based in Southern California. He can be reached at [email protected].
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/law
View all episodes
By New Books Network
4.1
1515 ratings
Glenn Ford, a Black man, spent thirty years on Louisiana’s death row for a crime he did not commit. He was released in 2014—and given twenty dollars—when prosecutors admitted they did not have a case against him.
Ford’s trial was a travesty. One of his court-appointed lawyers specialized in oil and gas law and had never tried a case. The other had been out of law school for only two years. They had no funds for investigation or experts. The prosecution struck all the Black prospective jurors to get the all-white jury that sentenced Ford to death.
In The Fear of Too Much Justice: Race, Poverty, and the Persistence of Inequality in the Criminal Courts (The New Press, 2023), legendary death penalty lawyer Stephen B. Bright and legal scholar James Kwak offer a heart-wrenching overview of how the criminal legal system fails to live up to the values of equality and justice. The book ranges from poor people squeezed for cash by private probation companies because of trivial violations to people executed in violation of the Constitution despite overwhelming evidence of intellectual disability or mental illness. They also show examples from around the country of places that are making progress toward justice.
With a foreword by Bryan Stevenson, who worked for Bright at the Southern Center for Human Rights and credits him for “[breaking] down the issues with the death penalty simply but persuasively,” The Fear of Too Much Justice offers a timely, trenchant, firsthand critique of our criminal courts and points the way toward a more just future.
Omari Averette-Phillips is a History Educator and an Independent Scholar based in Southern California. He can be reached at [email protected].
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/law
More shows like New Books in Law
View all
The LRB Podcast
292 Listeners
Amicus With Dahlia Lithwick | Law, justice, and the courts
3,538 Listeners
Odd Lots
1,890 Listeners
New Books in Philosophy
112 Listeners
New Books in History
210 Listeners
New Books in Military History
161 Listeners
New Books in Critical Theory
147 Listeners
New Books in Political Science
63 Listeners
New Books in Islamic Studies
31 Listeners
New Books in Psychoanalysis
185 Listeners
New Books in African American Studies
164 Listeners
New Books in Environmental Studies
23 Listeners
New Books in Native American Studies
103 Listeners
New Books in Intellectual History
61 Listeners
We the People
1,119 Listeners
Science Weekly
419 Listeners
Philosophy For Our Times
317 Listeners
The Lawfare Podcast
6,295 Listeners
Pod Save America
87,454 Listeners
The Daily
112,574 Listeners
Throughline
16,249 Listeners
Strict Scrutiny
5,758 Listeners
The Rest Is History
14,605 Listeners
The Ezra Klein Show
16,082 Listeners
The Foreign Affairs Interview
444 Listeners