Well Documented, And Worthwhile.
Customer Rating: 
Since the author was both a District Attorney and Judge I'll take her experiences in our mediocre legal system as true. Her premise that the American people should take back our socalled legal system and return it to a "democratic justice system is both logical and doable. This book covers everything from absurd jury awards, light sentences for violent offenders, draconian ones for milder crimes, corporate tax evasion, government collusion with both corporations and lobbyists, etc.
The following pages were the most significant. 7-8,21,41-5,79-80,89,102-5,108-9,121-6,134-5,153-5,159-162,193,206-7,and 222-5. The introduction and chapters 1-We Love Our Laws, and 5-A Nation Of Victims were the most disturbing. The former details how more rules-laws, do not guarantee our security. They only make our society more litigious, and increases the level of government intrusion in our lives. The latter focuses on the new American mantra. "Yeah I did it, but it's not my fault." The reader can peruse any newspaper at any time and see our excuse culture in full bloom. In conclusion, the recent conviction of corporate leaders like Skellig and Lay have hopefully turned the tide and reduced the fears the author expressed on page 121? Hopefully, our society will reverse the negative trends that have grown over the past 40 years?
Some good points, but others very hackneyed
Customer Rating: Although it's always good to have someone from the profession give the legal field a much needed reality check, this book started out strong, but by the second half it should have been much better. Legal students and professionals will this book more than most, being familiar with many of the cases she mentioned regarding various legal issues, if only from law school. Her bias and overall perspective, though, needs focus.
While she probably thought she did her noble best to be even handed in her analysis, Ms. Crier's conections to the limousine-liberalism crowd reared their ugly head too often. Ms. Crier cites from sources as left-leaning Mother Jones and the Atlantic Monthly, the New Yorker and sometimes downright untrustworthy ones as the New York Times (I haven't forgotten about Jayson Blair or his utter lack of supervision by Times editors for too long), though she did include Bernard Goldman in her Bibliography as well as a few snippets from the WSJ. Why not also a few from National Review or Reason magazine? If there were some, my apologies for missing them.
Ms. Crier also gives some politicians too much credit, as suggesting Bill Clinton was any more interested in the environment than anybody else on P.171. What she sees as last-minute concern for the environment by the outgoing Clinton should have been easily recognizible as kickbacks to unions and political pals (labor regulations, mining regulations, logging road bans), but apparently she really has a soft spot for Clinton as some sort of good guy gone awry, and thought these acts emerged for his genuine concern for mankind - make that person-kind.
Moreover, some parts of the book are flat out laughable - declaring that psychological addiction to marijuana is almost unheard of - HA! She knows better. Having been to college and graduate school, she probably met her share of stoners there and sentenced enough repeat offenders later on as a judge to know that psychological addiction is very real with pot.
That, and "serious criminal conduct is almost never associated with the use of marijuana." Eh? I guess nobody ever stole for pot money. (I have been burglarized - I consider that serious enough). The fact that the perpetrators might not of been high when they commit crimes really misses the point; pot use can definitely be assoiated with serious crimes, like it or not - ask any experienced restaurant manager how many times he's had to fire drug using employees for stealing. Not serious enough? Check any prison population and draw your own conclusions about their motivations, then.
She also says that there has never been a death associated with the use of pot. Now admittedly, it isn't nearly as dangerous as other drugs or alcohol, and it may be impossible to overdose on pot (I don't know for certain) but is she for real? So, driving under the influence of pot has never resulted in a traffic fatality? And she used to be a judge? Whatever side of the fence one might be on in the legalization of pot debate, I can't believe she'd say such ridiculous things.
Towards the end, in another understandable post 911-based rant, she cited the FDA holding up the approval of Anthrax vaccine as an example of how regulations can threaten national security. Here, unfortunately, she's woefully uninformed about the history behind that vaccine, as it was (probably still is) FAR from "perfectly fine". I was one of the unfortunate people in the military before 9-11 and was forced to take that crap. It wasn't even designed to prevent the type of anthrax exposure that could happen in a terrorist attack, but politically, it was a tactic to present the US military as "anthrax proof" to our enemies. The vaccine had its problems, though, and the FDA got that one right.
As I mentioned, the second half of the book somewhat descends into a wholesale comdemnation of the current political process, which, though it may be true in general, really isn't anything more than a bemoaning of the obvious with occasional hyperbole and "conventional wisdom" (rich are getting richer, they pay no taxes, blah blah blah...) thrown in. It's not unlike what I had to sit through in political science class back when I was 19, when I thought I could change the world too.
She gets some traction again near the end, when she finally gets back to identifying what she thinks is wrong with the profession and what could be done about it. She also points out, in several places, that we are turning into a society where there is no right and wrong, coming down on one side or the other is considered extremism and judging itself is becoming a lost art. Sadly, I kept getting the feeling that every time she wrote a verse like this, she'd follow it with something her Madison Avenue friends would find acceptable, as if she were grandstanding a bit.
So, though I enjoyed the book, I think the focus could have been more on the lawyers and the law profession itself instead of social commentary and repetition of favorite mantras of the useful idiots (e.g., environmentalist claims served to the reader as uncontestible conventional wisdom). Where she did comment on things outside her area of expertise, she probably could have done a little more research.
