After the Madness:: A Judge's Own Prison Memoir

by Sol Wachtler

n the course of a year, Sol Wachtler went from being New York's top judge to the very bottom of the criminal justice system, assigned to solitary confinement in a federal prison. Poignant, gripping, and unflinching in its honesty, Wachtler's memoir is a warning from America's most dangerous realm and a revealing account of what prison does to individuals.

Genres: True Crime, Memoir, Nonfiction, Crime, Biography

369 pages, Hardcover

First published March 25, 1997

Reviews

[Kathrina · Rating 5 out of 5]

I didn't think I wanted to read this book, but it was the only non-religious prison memoir on the shelves at my local library, and so I picked it up. In getting to know Sol Wachtler I have learned a tremendous amount about the federal prison system, the responsibilities of a Chief Judge, and the remarkable character that is Judge Wachtler. He made a big mistake in 1991, influenced by prescription drugs and manic depression, and he paid for it in an 11-month jail term that wrecked his 20+ career as one of the most innovative and productive Chief Appellate Judges in the country. His name is on a thick stack of hugely important laws, including the ability to convict a man for raping his wife. His experience in prison is not a woe-is-me tale, but an insightful examination of the experience of a convicted felon told with the sophisticated and honest language of a career professional. He holds forth on prison management and judicial practice that he has problems with, giving specific anecdotal evidence to how they played out in front of him, and always included solutions that make sense. One of his biggest issues is (was?) the change in sentencing procedure from the judge -- who could give a length of sentence that was uniquely appropriate to the level of the crime, to the prosecutor, who argues that a defendant fits a particular definition of crime, for which each crime has a minimal sentencing requirement. He describes it as a woman who steals powdered milk to feed her baby serves the same jail time as a drug dealer who steals powdered milk to cut his cocaine. Points can be added for obstructing justice, which can mean as little as not narcing on anyone else, therefore not cooperating with the police. Wachtler says prosecutors complain that the old way was too much work, judging each crime individually, but Wachtler responds with the best line ever: "Law enforcement is difficult, except in a police state."
Wachtler really makes the case for the need to expend more time on rehabilitative services and give lighter sentencing on first-offense non-violent offenders. Every 40-year sentence costs us around $2 million dollars, and we're turning first-offenders into unskilled professional criminals. Only 3% of the current federal prison population are violent. We could spend less and get real people back in our communities at the end of the deal. Why isn't this happening? What is wrong with the world?!! Why build one more damn prison to house another 1000 pot smokers???
I was happy to learn that Wachtler got his law license back in 2007, and he's teaching law and working to provide alternative courts for the mentally handicapped. What an amazing person, a new idol for me. Oh my god, he's 81 years old and still working for justice.

[Andrew Breslin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book caught my eye as I was penning a dark and gritty prison novel. To lend my sordid tale the proper musky stench of verisimilitude, I sought insight into the world of shower rapes, gang violence, murder, mayhem, wasted lives, abject despair, and nasty jagged homemade shanks to the jugular. Little did I suspect it would be so knee-slappingly hilarious.

It might well be the funniest prison-themed book ever. Except maybe for mine, but I wouldn’t trust me on that point, because I’m probably extremely biased, and shamelessly dishonest too. But although this is pee-your-pants funny, it doesn’t for a moment suggest that prison is a laughing matter. Even as I was chuckling merrily away, I was nevertheless shocked and horrified, scared even straighter than I was before, and vowed to cancel my backup plan for pursuing a life of crime when my book fell spectacularly short of its ambitions to be a bestseller.

That’s a tough trick Judge Wachtler pulled off: taking on a deathly serious subject and treating it with humor, without crossing the line to belittling and mocking something that we, as a society ought to think a lot more seriously about. Such is the state of our penal system. And Wachtler is more qualified than just about anyone to opine, having become intimately familiar with both sides of that ugly but inevitable institution. There always has been and always will be crime in human societies, and we will always need some type of system to deter it, most likely including incarcerating at least some proportion of our citizenry. But if your country locks up a larger percentage of its citizens than any other nation on the face of the Earth (as the U.S. does) and yet still has rates of crime and murder that could hold their own with any lawless third-world quagmire run by drug gangs and warlords (in your face, Somalia!) then you’re doing something wrong. Your strategy isn’t working very well.

In the course of my research, I read dozens of other books, and probably hundreds of articles and blog posts written by past and present prisoners, guards, attorneys, politicians, sociologists and crime statisticians. I visited a couple of prisons, spoke with some of the inmates, and interviewed both a former prison staffer and an ex-con who’d spent a few years up the river. All these sources painted a similar ugly, blood and semen-stained picture of an utterly broken system in desperate need of fixing, not only for the sake of the many individuals who don’t deserve to be caged alongside the ones who actually belong there, but for all of us on the outside, who, though we need not worry adversely about being shivved the next time we shower, are still affected by this spectacularly dysfunctional system.

None of those other sources was nearly as enjoyable as this book, though. I have seldom been so entertained reading about something so horrible. I’m inspired to follow in his footsteps and maybe present a hilarious collection of Holocaust jokes.

“So, a crippled feminist with AIDS stumbles into a concentration camp . . . “

[Hisses and crickets. Angry, angry crickets.]

Ooh, tough crowd. See? I told you it’s tough to pull off humor under these circumstances. Check this out to see it done extremely well.


(And of course, you had to expect at least a little shameless self-promotion, so here’s my prison novel here)

[Debbie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Repeatedly refusing to excuse his own conduct which landed him in prison (perhaps unjustly, at least to which prison he was sent), Judge Wachtler illustrates the harshness of prison life, of course, but more interestingly, on this side of the bars, he is able to see (as he puts it) and show us "a world [he] had dealt with all [his] adult life but never saw." The points he makes are not new with him, I am sure, but he discusses the inequities of grand juries, the failings of mandated prison terms, the surprising (to me) percentage of criminals (around 3%) who are incarcerated for violent crimes (evidencing the need for more drug treatments programs instead of locking up non-violent first offenders for decades), expenditures on more and more prisons, and how we are not all equal before the law. His arguments gain validity with me because of his incarceration not in Club Feb but a maximum security prison.

[Ocean · Rating 3 out of 5]

i picked this up because i read about judge w's bizarre case in another book, "how to become a scandal" by laura kipnis. it involved him making up all these strange characters and dressing like them whilst stalking his extramarital lover who dumped him for another man. i was fascinated. this book is interesting and explains his motives a little, to the point where it almost makes sense why he did what he did. the book's a kinda standard privileged-white-guy-goes-to-prison-and-is-shocked-to-learn-what-its-like-to-be-endlessly-disrespected-like-everyone-else-in-the-world / the-prison-system-is-fucked narrative. but it's interesting to hear about it from someone who has such a detailed knowledge of the judicial system from an insiders' perspective. and it's unintentionally hilarious when this 60-soething straightlaced judge learns words like "homey" from his new friends in prison, and uses them!

[Natasha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great insights into the prison system from someone who has more knowledge than your average convict. Some reviewers said he's arrogant - nah he's not. He does describe what thought processes of mania are like though. Clearly if his mania is taken as arrogance, then the reviewer doesn't understand bipolar disorder. Bipolar wreaks havoc on a person's life. This was a very well done insight into the world of bipolar disorder as well as a thought provoker on the US prison system.

[Jc · Rating 3 out of 5]

Intense account of Judge Wachtler's imprisonment after stalking ex mistress. Provides a hard look at the justice system -- thought provoking. Lots of fun characters in prison, also lots of sad cases -- many drug-related prisoners w/long sentences that just aren't right. Too much bragging about the glory days for the Judge, but then again, who can blame him...a long hard descent. Some very humorous scenes too, surprisingly.

[Lenny · Rating 5 out of 5]

Engrossing and stark true story of the mental effects of severe depression and drug addiction on one individual.

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

We don’t do a good job with mental illnesses. Very interesting how the Judge manages to show life after his mental breakdown. Good perspective on prison life.

[Richard Curry · Rating 5 out of 5]

A diary of a very prominent and respected judge who managed to get himself arrested, convicted and imprisoned. He explains how it happened, and then after a brief introductory narrative, his diary begins. His diary entries chronicle events and thoughts during a prison stay in 2 federal facilities. He explains they were not Club Fed camps, but actual prisons, with medical facilities. His diary entries describe many varied experiences from getting his hair frozen after a shower he had to walk outside during a Minnesota winter, to getting family and professional colleague visitors, including a US Supreme Court Justice, who gives him a hug, and being kept in solitary confinement on occasion. He describes people he met in prison, and tells little stories about them and their biographies, and some of the procedural history which led them to become incarcerated with him. He tells of being confronted by 3 large, menacing black dudes and being told that HE was the one who put their daddy in prison. When he wonders out loud if that were possible, since he was mostly an appeals and not a trial judge, they all three bust out laughing at their prank! He describes breaking 4 ribs tripping on a gopher hole when involved with a 6 foot tall Chippewa chief who does not like being called Sioux. He has a chapter on meeting organized crime bosses in the pen, and has some history on several Mafia families which he remembers from his career as a judge. He has quite a few insights about public policy which he explains he could not have reached if he had remained a judge on the outside. He feels he has a lot to offer, perhaps as a teacher or lecturer, and when he is released, he is, at first welcomed at a college as a teacher, but then told they cannot allow him to continue, so he finds that his employment and career options have become severely limited as a result of his conviction and incarceration. He does take responsibility for his errors, and other than a little initial whining about how his accuser could have just come to him directly with her complaints, instead of going to the FBI (He admits in his madness he demanded extortion money which he did not need from her using a fictitious identity, hoping that she would turn to him again for help. He had previously had an extramarital affair with her, but then he broke it off). He also complains that the prosecutor made a big media show of his arrest, to aggrandize his own career, which he explains is actually par for the course: a form of judicial trophy hunting, (to mix metaphors).
Eventually, on the outside, he starts an ADR (alternate dispute resolution) type of business with some colleagues, so that he is involved in arbitration and mediation for private parties who have agreed to avoid civil litigation. This seems like a very intelligent and best outcome for him, after a hellacious ordeal for everyone. His comments about public policy on non-violent, drug-related, first time offenders have the voice of experience from the bench and now the cell, and many people agree with that now, although perhaps at the time this book was written, such an opinion was perhaps rather more novel, and interesting coming from a judge, who explains his previous naivete contrasts with the anecdotal stories he has since acquired as an inmate.

When I first started reading, I commented: Just started reading book AFTER THE MADNESS, a judge's own prison memoir, by Sol Wachtler. From the very first few pages the former New York state chief judge describes weaving a complex web of deceptive pretenses (fake letters from invented, fictitious bogeyman, etc.) in a vain attempt to manipulate a younger female relative with whom he had previously been having an extramarital affair. I see how those efforts were what are called "indirect alternatives"* to obtaining a goal. Indeed, contact with the lady was in service of personal goals and needs which were not inextricably linked to her involvement (i.e. he could have figured out a way of meeting those needs without harassing her). So all of the machinations and manipulations described in the book are, from the start, looking to me to be tragically misguided and unnecessary.

Let us all resolve to figure out what we basically truly need and to figure out how to get it with as little fuss, bother, and annoyance of others. This is called a "direct alternative"*. When a person decides to manipulate others as a path to obtaining what they think they need, they lose their own freedom & they make the path to happiness unnecessarily difficult, inefficient, & indirect, because it depends on actions and persuasion or manipulation of others. Choose the easier, more direct path if you can find one or figure one out. You will be glad you did! :-)

*HOW I FOUND FREEDOM IN AN UNFREE WORLD by Harry Browne.

[Jason Damman · Rating 4 out of 5]

A judge goes off the rails and ends up in prison, writing a memoir about what his life was like behind bars.

Very interesting, this book shows how harsh the American prison system is and brings to light why mandatory minimums are a bad idea.

The “for profit” prison system and how judge Wachtler navigates it through his own mental anguish and the kindness of others makes this a very good read.

[Todd Cannon · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is very realistic. It will make you look differently at our federal prison system.

[Lynn Calvin]

Fictionwise multiformat ebook

[Kevin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I remember when Wachtler fell from grace. I could relate to quite a bit in this book.

[Gemma Castolenia · Rating 2 out of 5]

Great info on prison reform and ideas for policy changes that would actually make a difference. The author seems to really see himself as better than the other men he meets in prison, he casts himself in such a benevolent light while trying to project that he is "of the people". He also doesn't seem to take full acknowledgement of what he did without saying "it could've been prevented if the FBI had just stopped me earlier".