What do you think?
Rate this book
Fundamental Cases: The Twentieth-Century Courtroom Battles that Changed our Nation
Professor and civil liberties lawyer Alan Dershowitz looks at history through the prism of the trial, because a trial presents a snapshot of what is going on at a particular point in time in the nation's history.
79 pages, Audio
First published January 1, 2006
3 people are currently reading
79 people want to read
About the author
Alan M. Dershowitz
145 books318 followersAlan Morton Dershowitz is an American lawyer, jurist, and political commentator. He is the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. He is known for his career as an attorney in several high-profile law cases and commentary on the Arab-Israeli conflict.
He has spent most of his career at Harvard, where, at the age of 28, he became the youngest full professor in its history, until Noam Elkies took the record. Dershowitz still holds the record as the youngest person to become a professor of law there.
As a criminal appellate lawyer, Dershowitz has won thirteen out of the fifteen murder and attempted murder cases he has handled. He successfully argued to overturn the conviction of Claus von Bülow for the attempted murder of Bülow's wife, Sunny. Dershowitz was the appellate advisor for the defense in the criminal trial of O.J. Simpson for the murder of his ex-wife Nicole Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman.
He has spent most of his career at Harvard, where, at the age of 28, he became the youngest full professor in its history, until Noam Elkies took the record. Dershowitz still holds the record as the youngest person to become a professor of law there.
As a criminal appellate lawyer, Dershowitz has won thirteen out of the fifteen murder and attempted murder cases he has handled. He successfully argued to overturn the conviction of Claus von Bülow for the attempted murder of Bülow's wife, Sunny. Dershowitz was the appellate advisor for the defense in the criminal trial of O.J. Simpson for the murder of his ex-wife Nicole Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews
August 25, 2018
In this lecture series, apparently based on the book America on Trial: Inside the Legal Battles that Transformed Our Nation, Professor Dershowitz describes thirteen court cases that very well represented snapshots of the mores, values and key issues of their day along with one area of litigation contemporary with the development of his lecture series that was a good snapshot of a controversial current issue. The court cases are:
• Scopes trial – Although I disagree with Dershowitz’ assessment that the Scopes trial pitted science and reason against religion, I commend him for his balanced discussion about the case. For example, he points out that one issue with Scopes was his choice of a textbook that pushed a social Darwinist point of view claiming the evolutionary superiority of European races and advocating eugenics. He also points out that, unlike the version of the trial popularized in Inherit the Wind, prosecutor William Jennings Bryan tended to get the best of defense attorney Clarence Darrow.
• Leo Frank – Leo Frank was a New York Jew who ran a pencil factory near Atlanta Georgia. When one of his employees, a twelve-year-old white girl, was found murdered and possibly sexually molested in the factory, Frank was implicated by a black employee. After Frank was convicted and sentenced to death, some evidence protected by attorney-client privilege came into the hands of a local attorney that the crime had been committed by someone else. Unable to reveal the privileged information, the attorney contacted the governor to inform him that Frank was innocent and that he could not tell him how he knew without revealing confidential and privileged information. After the governor commuted Frank’s sentence, destroying his own political career in the process, a mob broke into the prison housing Frank and lynched that New York Jew. Dershowitz chose to include this case because it showed the growing anti-immigrant attitudes of the time and because of the attorney’s dilemma between protecting privileged information and opposing the execution of an innocent man.
• Leopold and Loeb – Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb were two young scions of wealthy families who, having read Nietzsche, believed that they were ultra-smart supermen who could commit the perfect crime and get away with it. After they murdered a young acquaintance, they were quickly caught because of some incriminating evidence they negligently left at the scene of the crime. Dershowitz chose to include this case because of the impassioned argument by their defense attorney, Clarence Darrow, against the death penalty. He persuaded the judge, but to this day there is substantial popular support for capital punishment.
• Julius and Ethel Rosenberg – The Rosenbergs were tried, convicted and executed for spying for the Soviet Union and passing on atomic bomb secrets. Evidence that has since been declassified suggests that Julius was guilty and that Ethel was either ignorant of or uninvolved in her husband’s activities. The same evidence indicates that the government knew this and targeted her in an unsuccessful effort to coerce Julius into revealing the secrets of the spy network of which he was a small part. In other words, the government intentionally and knowingly executed an innocent person. While communism did not have much influence in America, there was a very successful pro-Soviet spy network that was a genuine threat, and Julius Rosenberg was a part of it.
• O.J. Simpson – Former football player O.J. Simpson was tried for and acquitted of the murder of his ex-wife Nicole Brown, whom he had abused during their marriage, and her friend Ron Goldman. This trial was significant for two reasons. First, Simpson is black, and Brown and Goldman were white. Much of white America considered him to be guilty, and much of black America felt that the prosecution was racially motivated and that he was innocent. Second, the police early on suspected his guilt and without probable cause broke into his mansion without a search warrant in an effort to collect evidence before he had a chance to destroy it. Because any evidence collected at this time could not be used in the trial, the police generated, planted and “found” some fake evidence that was quickly exposed as fake by the defense. As I listened to this lecture, I wondered how I would handle such a dilemma as a juror. On the one hand, I have a defendant I am convinced is guilty. If I acquit, a guilty man goes free. On the other, I have a prosecutor using planted evidence. Today, he is using it against a guilty defendant, but tomorrow, he might use such evidence against an innocent defendant. If I convict, I am communicating that such underhanded tactics are ok. Is there a third option, a way to make both slime balls lose?
• Sacco and Vanzetti – Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, anarchists who had immigrated from Italy, were convicted of a shooting death that took place during a robber, were sentenced to death and executed. The evidence against them was so weak that it is still unclear whether they were even involved in the robbery that claimed a life. At any rate, their prosecution and conviction appear to have been driven more by hostility to immigrants, especially those who were socialists and syndicalists. Dershowitz categorizes this case as one “where the process failed, where bigotry, racism, anti-Italian feelings, and anti-immigrant feelings played more of a role than the evidence.”
• Claus von Bulow was convicted of murdering his socialite wife by inducing a coma by means of an insulin injection. The conviction was overturned on appeal because the forensic evidence was demonstrated to have been misinterpreted and mischaracterized during the original trial. Furthermore, it was demonstrated that his late wife had induced the coma herself with an overdose of barbiturates coupled with an overdose of sugar (she was hypoglycemic). In other words, his wife’s own reckless behavior killed her, and the authorities jumped to the conclusion that he had murdered her. As I listened to this lecture, I couldn’t help but to think about Sudden Infant Death Syndrome and some news reports indicating that bereaved parents of infants had occasionally been convicted of murder when their infants suddenly died. In the absence of further evidence, it is irresponsible to assume by default that a death is the result of foul play.
• Bernhard Goetz became famous as the subway vigilante. After being mugged on a New York City subway, he armed himself with the intent to take on the criminal element. In a subway encounter, he perceived that he was about to be mugged by a group of black youths, pulled out his pistol and shot all of them, none fatally. His action stirred up a firestorm of controversy. At the time, New York City was in the midst of a severe crime wave, and the subways were viewed as a place of danger. Many saw him as a hero and even a number black people supported him, being fed up with the crime rates and recognizing that the issue was crime and not race. Several years later, after Mayor Giuliani’s policies had reduced the crime rate and made New York City a much safer place, Goetz was seen as an embarrassment. What had changed? With a reduced risk of being victimized by crime, the citizens saw his actions as less justified than they had when crime was a bigger threat.
• Mike Tyson was accused of rape by Desiree Washington, a Miss Black America contestant, and subsequently tried and convicted. During the course of the trial, media coverage of Washington’s courtroom testimony prompted witnesses to come forward contact the defense team to inform them that she had committed perjury regarding an interaction in Tyson’s limo, but the judge, a former rape prosecutor, refused to allow them to testify for the defense. Furthermore, her own attorney contacted the judge to inform her that Washington had committed perjury regarding her own financial stake in the trial, but the judge refused to consider this new evidence. This case marks a change in the approach to rape cases. The accuser was granted more credibility than she might have had in the past, but evidence calling her honesty into question was completely ignored. This lecture was recorded at least a decade ago, and since then, universities have so lowered the bar for sexual misconduct rulings that their tribunals are sometimes little more than kangaroo courts, as indicated by the success rate in lawsuits by expelled male students against the universities. It would be quite interesting to hear Dershowitz comment on this current issue.
• Roe v. Wade – There should be no explanation necessary regarding the nature of this case. Dershowitz includes this case because it spawned a political movement in opposition to abortion. He also notes that the Supreme Court, in taking the abortion issue outside of the political process, distorted the politics of the nation. Because moderate Republicans who supported abortion rights no longer had to worry about religious conservatives acting against it, they no longer felt any qualms about supporting or voting for them. As a result, the Republican party moved to the right in response to the ruling. As a strong conservative, I don’t necessarily see that as a bad thing, but I can understand why Dershowitz might have a problem with it.
• Lawrence v. Texas – In a police raid over a reported weapons disturbance, two adult men were found engaging in a homosexual sex act. One of them, John Lawrence, was arrested, charged with sodomy, a misdemeanor in Texas, tried and convicted. When his appeal was reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court, the resultant ruling counseled “against any attempts by the state or a court to define the meaning of a relationship or to set its boundaries absent injury to a person or abuse of an institution the law protects.” One of the effects of this case was to legalize nationwide homosexual behavior as “a protected liberty under the privacy, due-process rights of the United States Constitution.” The recording of this lecture preceded by several years the Obergefell case that declared same-sex marriage to be a constitutional right, but it is clear that Lawrence v. Texas was a landmark on the road to Obergefell. As a conservative Christian with religious objections to both homosexual conduct and same sex marriage, I strongly object to Obergefell but recognize why Dershowitz would have chosen Lawrence v. Texas for this lecture series.
• Clinton impeachment – The charge under which President Clinton was impeached was perjury in a sexual harassment case. Dershowitz notes that, as with the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson after the Civil War, the impeachment was strictly a partisan process driven more by the power struggle between the President and Congress than by the President’s actual behavior. Although I did not like President Clinton and considered his affair with Monica Lewinski to be a reprehensible disgrace, I have to agree with Professor Dershowitz on this point. An interesting point that Dershowitz noted was that the deposition in which President Clinton perjured himself didn’t even have to happen. President Clinton could have merely provided the court with the amount of damages demanded by the plaintiff and accepted the loss of the case without a deposition and without going to trial, but his attorney never informed him of that option. From Dershowitz’s point of view, this was an unforced error that gave President Clinton’s political enemies a pretext to act against him.
• Bush v. Gore – In the 2000 presidential election, Al Gore won the popular vote, but George W. Bush appeared to win the electoral college vote, which is what matters. The big question mark was Florida. The popular vote in Florida was very close, with Bush in the lead. Whoever won Florida would win the election. Gore requested and got a recount in certain counties, but the punch-card ballots presented a question of voter intent. If the chad were punched out, voter intent was clear, but what about a chad that was only partially punched out or merely dimpled. To complicate matters, every time the votes were recounted either by machine or by hand, the numbers changed. Gore filed a lawsuit to keep the recounts going and to prevent Florida from certifying the results. Ultimately, the case went up to the U.S. Supreme Court, which decided in favor of Bush and stopped the recounts. Dershowitz included this case because it may have affected the outcome of a presidential election and because he has some legitimate concerns that the outcome of the case might have been different had Gore been in the lead and had Bush been the one pushing for recounts.
The contemporary litigation discussed is human rights in the face of terrorism. When countries are faced with threats that may be existential or have the potential for mass casualties, they often subvert the rule of law as a means of survival, and people often give up rights, as has been done with America’s war on terrorism. Dershowitz included this situation as a lecture because it was (and still is) a contemporary issue reflecting the realities and values of the day that was being litigated. After listening to this lecture, I had the following questions:
1. Once rights are given up in an effort to address a threat, how do you restore them once the threat is gone?
2. Since much of the terrorism we face is Islamic, there is understandably much anti-Muslim sentiment in the country. Islam is a religion, and we hold freedom of religion as sacrosanct. However, in the majority of Muslim countries, there is no freedom of religion. How do we balance freedom of religion for Muslims with the legitimate concern that, as their proportion of the population rises, they might attempt to suppress freedom of religion for non-Muslims? In other words, how do we keep someone from using our rights as an opportunity to become sufficiently powerful to destroy those very rights?
If anything, this lecture series was simultaneously informative and thought-provoking.
• Scopes trial – Although I disagree with Dershowitz’ assessment that the Scopes trial pitted science and reason against religion, I commend him for his balanced discussion about the case. For example, he points out that one issue with Scopes was his choice of a textbook that pushed a social Darwinist point of view claiming the evolutionary superiority of European races and advocating eugenics. He also points out that, unlike the version of the trial popularized in Inherit the Wind, prosecutor William Jennings Bryan tended to get the best of defense attorney Clarence Darrow.
• Leo Frank – Leo Frank was a New York Jew who ran a pencil factory near Atlanta Georgia. When one of his employees, a twelve-year-old white girl, was found murdered and possibly sexually molested in the factory, Frank was implicated by a black employee. After Frank was convicted and sentenced to death, some evidence protected by attorney-client privilege came into the hands of a local attorney that the crime had been committed by someone else. Unable to reveal the privileged information, the attorney contacted the governor to inform him that Frank was innocent and that he could not tell him how he knew without revealing confidential and privileged information. After the governor commuted Frank’s sentence, destroying his own political career in the process, a mob broke into the prison housing Frank and lynched that New York Jew. Dershowitz chose to include this case because it showed the growing anti-immigrant attitudes of the time and because of the attorney’s dilemma between protecting privileged information and opposing the execution of an innocent man.
• Leopold and Loeb – Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb were two young scions of wealthy families who, having read Nietzsche, believed that they were ultra-smart supermen who could commit the perfect crime and get away with it. After they murdered a young acquaintance, they were quickly caught because of some incriminating evidence they negligently left at the scene of the crime. Dershowitz chose to include this case because of the impassioned argument by their defense attorney, Clarence Darrow, against the death penalty. He persuaded the judge, but to this day there is substantial popular support for capital punishment.
• Julius and Ethel Rosenberg – The Rosenbergs were tried, convicted and executed for spying for the Soviet Union and passing on atomic bomb secrets. Evidence that has since been declassified suggests that Julius was guilty and that Ethel was either ignorant of or uninvolved in her husband’s activities. The same evidence indicates that the government knew this and targeted her in an unsuccessful effort to coerce Julius into revealing the secrets of the spy network of which he was a small part. In other words, the government intentionally and knowingly executed an innocent person. While communism did not have much influence in America, there was a very successful pro-Soviet spy network that was a genuine threat, and Julius Rosenberg was a part of it.
• O.J. Simpson – Former football player O.J. Simpson was tried for and acquitted of the murder of his ex-wife Nicole Brown, whom he had abused during their marriage, and her friend Ron Goldman. This trial was significant for two reasons. First, Simpson is black, and Brown and Goldman were white. Much of white America considered him to be guilty, and much of black America felt that the prosecution was racially motivated and that he was innocent. Second, the police early on suspected his guilt and without probable cause broke into his mansion without a search warrant in an effort to collect evidence before he had a chance to destroy it. Because any evidence collected at this time could not be used in the trial, the police generated, planted and “found” some fake evidence that was quickly exposed as fake by the defense. As I listened to this lecture, I wondered how I would handle such a dilemma as a juror. On the one hand, I have a defendant I am convinced is guilty. If I acquit, a guilty man goes free. On the other, I have a prosecutor using planted evidence. Today, he is using it against a guilty defendant, but tomorrow, he might use such evidence against an innocent defendant. If I convict, I am communicating that such underhanded tactics are ok. Is there a third option, a way to make both slime balls lose?
• Sacco and Vanzetti – Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, anarchists who had immigrated from Italy, were convicted of a shooting death that took place during a robber, were sentenced to death and executed. The evidence against them was so weak that it is still unclear whether they were even involved in the robbery that claimed a life. At any rate, their prosecution and conviction appear to have been driven more by hostility to immigrants, especially those who were socialists and syndicalists. Dershowitz categorizes this case as one “where the process failed, where bigotry, racism, anti-Italian feelings, and anti-immigrant feelings played more of a role than the evidence.”
• Claus von Bulow was convicted of murdering his socialite wife by inducing a coma by means of an insulin injection. The conviction was overturned on appeal because the forensic evidence was demonstrated to have been misinterpreted and mischaracterized during the original trial. Furthermore, it was demonstrated that his late wife had induced the coma herself with an overdose of barbiturates coupled with an overdose of sugar (she was hypoglycemic). In other words, his wife’s own reckless behavior killed her, and the authorities jumped to the conclusion that he had murdered her. As I listened to this lecture, I couldn’t help but to think about Sudden Infant Death Syndrome and some news reports indicating that bereaved parents of infants had occasionally been convicted of murder when their infants suddenly died. In the absence of further evidence, it is irresponsible to assume by default that a death is the result of foul play.
• Bernhard Goetz became famous as the subway vigilante. After being mugged on a New York City subway, he armed himself with the intent to take on the criminal element. In a subway encounter, he perceived that he was about to be mugged by a group of black youths, pulled out his pistol and shot all of them, none fatally. His action stirred up a firestorm of controversy. At the time, New York City was in the midst of a severe crime wave, and the subways were viewed as a place of danger. Many saw him as a hero and even a number black people supported him, being fed up with the crime rates and recognizing that the issue was crime and not race. Several years later, after Mayor Giuliani’s policies had reduced the crime rate and made New York City a much safer place, Goetz was seen as an embarrassment. What had changed? With a reduced risk of being victimized by crime, the citizens saw his actions as less justified than they had when crime was a bigger threat.
• Mike Tyson was accused of rape by Desiree Washington, a Miss Black America contestant, and subsequently tried and convicted. During the course of the trial, media coverage of Washington’s courtroom testimony prompted witnesses to come forward contact the defense team to inform them that she had committed perjury regarding an interaction in Tyson’s limo, but the judge, a former rape prosecutor, refused to allow them to testify for the defense. Furthermore, her own attorney contacted the judge to inform her that Washington had committed perjury regarding her own financial stake in the trial, but the judge refused to consider this new evidence. This case marks a change in the approach to rape cases. The accuser was granted more credibility than she might have had in the past, but evidence calling her honesty into question was completely ignored. This lecture was recorded at least a decade ago, and since then, universities have so lowered the bar for sexual misconduct rulings that their tribunals are sometimes little more than kangaroo courts, as indicated by the success rate in lawsuits by expelled male students against the universities. It would be quite interesting to hear Dershowitz comment on this current issue.
• Roe v. Wade – There should be no explanation necessary regarding the nature of this case. Dershowitz includes this case because it spawned a political movement in opposition to abortion. He also notes that the Supreme Court, in taking the abortion issue outside of the political process, distorted the politics of the nation. Because moderate Republicans who supported abortion rights no longer had to worry about religious conservatives acting against it, they no longer felt any qualms about supporting or voting for them. As a result, the Republican party moved to the right in response to the ruling. As a strong conservative, I don’t necessarily see that as a bad thing, but I can understand why Dershowitz might have a problem with it.
• Lawrence v. Texas – In a police raid over a reported weapons disturbance, two adult men were found engaging in a homosexual sex act. One of them, John Lawrence, was arrested, charged with sodomy, a misdemeanor in Texas, tried and convicted. When his appeal was reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court, the resultant ruling counseled “against any attempts by the state or a court to define the meaning of a relationship or to set its boundaries absent injury to a person or abuse of an institution the law protects.” One of the effects of this case was to legalize nationwide homosexual behavior as “a protected liberty under the privacy, due-process rights of the United States Constitution.” The recording of this lecture preceded by several years the Obergefell case that declared same-sex marriage to be a constitutional right, but it is clear that Lawrence v. Texas was a landmark on the road to Obergefell. As a conservative Christian with religious objections to both homosexual conduct and same sex marriage, I strongly object to Obergefell but recognize why Dershowitz would have chosen Lawrence v. Texas for this lecture series.
• Clinton impeachment – The charge under which President Clinton was impeached was perjury in a sexual harassment case. Dershowitz notes that, as with the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson after the Civil War, the impeachment was strictly a partisan process driven more by the power struggle between the President and Congress than by the President’s actual behavior. Although I did not like President Clinton and considered his affair with Monica Lewinski to be a reprehensible disgrace, I have to agree with Professor Dershowitz on this point. An interesting point that Dershowitz noted was that the deposition in which President Clinton perjured himself didn’t even have to happen. President Clinton could have merely provided the court with the amount of damages demanded by the plaintiff and accepted the loss of the case without a deposition and without going to trial, but his attorney never informed him of that option. From Dershowitz’s point of view, this was an unforced error that gave President Clinton’s political enemies a pretext to act against him.
• Bush v. Gore – In the 2000 presidential election, Al Gore won the popular vote, but George W. Bush appeared to win the electoral college vote, which is what matters. The big question mark was Florida. The popular vote in Florida was very close, with Bush in the lead. Whoever won Florida would win the election. Gore requested and got a recount in certain counties, but the punch-card ballots presented a question of voter intent. If the chad were punched out, voter intent was clear, but what about a chad that was only partially punched out or merely dimpled. To complicate matters, every time the votes were recounted either by machine or by hand, the numbers changed. Gore filed a lawsuit to keep the recounts going and to prevent Florida from certifying the results. Ultimately, the case went up to the U.S. Supreme Court, which decided in favor of Bush and stopped the recounts. Dershowitz included this case because it may have affected the outcome of a presidential election and because he has some legitimate concerns that the outcome of the case might have been different had Gore been in the lead and had Bush been the one pushing for recounts.
The contemporary litigation discussed is human rights in the face of terrorism. When countries are faced with threats that may be existential or have the potential for mass casualties, they often subvert the rule of law as a means of survival, and people often give up rights, as has been done with America’s war on terrorism. Dershowitz included this situation as a lecture because it was (and still is) a contemporary issue reflecting the realities and values of the day that was being litigated. After listening to this lecture, I had the following questions:
1. Once rights are given up in an effort to address a threat, how do you restore them once the threat is gone?
2. Since much of the terrorism we face is Islamic, there is understandably much anti-Muslim sentiment in the country. Islam is a religion, and we hold freedom of religion as sacrosanct. However, in the majority of Muslim countries, there is no freedom of religion. How do we balance freedom of religion for Muslims with the legitimate concern that, as their proportion of the population rises, they might attempt to suppress freedom of religion for non-Muslims? In other words, how do we keep someone from using our rights as an opportunity to become sufficiently powerful to destroy those very rights?
If anything, this lecture series was simultaneously informative and thought-provoking.
September 5, 2019
No matter what else can be said about the author, his lectures on these legal cases are thought provoking, entertaining and brilliant. This is a look into one of the most intriguing legal minds of recent times. I realize he is often controversial, but I am always interested in what he says.
February 2, 2018
I was sad to find myself fairly disappointed in this book. I had expected something about cases where the decisions became important precedent--maybe due to my history of taking classes on and reading about the Supreme Court--rather than what it was, a discussion of criminal trials that the author considers culturally important.
Even so, this could have been an interesting book. And parts of it were. It would probably have helped if Prof. Dershowitz hadn't selected a number of cases in which he served as counsel or a witness, or was otherwise involved, as it sometimes gave the impression that he was just focusing on cases that were important to him.
Also, as an LGBT person, I found Prof. Dershowitz's use of descriptions such as "predatory homosexual" very uncomfortable. While he seemed to describe himself as a liberal who supported LGBT rights, his discussions of LGBT people and issues consistently rubbed me quite the wrong way.
Even so, this could have been an interesting book. And parts of it were. It would probably have helped if Prof. Dershowitz hadn't selected a number of cases in which he served as counsel or a witness, or was otherwise involved, as it sometimes gave the impression that he was just focusing on cases that were important to him.
Also, as an LGBT person, I found Prof. Dershowitz's use of descriptions such as "predatory homosexual" very uncomfortable. While he seemed to describe himself as a liberal who supported LGBT rights, his discussions of LGBT people and issues consistently rubbed me quite the wrong way.
April 29, 2010
I was totally captivated by Dershowitz's lectures on legal cases. He reviewed the basics in each case but then discussed the aspects of the case in context of its time and its importance for law in general. I listened to this on audiodisc in the car and found myself just sitting in the driveway or a parking lot so I could finish listening to a section. Dershowitz is a law professor at Harvard and also has been involved in some of the cases he discusses, which include Scopes Trial, Sacco and Vanzetti, Rosenbergs, Roe Vs Wade, Mike Tyson rape case, Bush Vs Gore.
This particular version is only available on CD but I think he takes a similar approach in his book, America on Trial: Inside the legal battles that transformed our nation -from the Salem witches to the Guantanamo Detainees.
This particular version is only available on CD but I think he takes a similar approach in his book, America on Trial: Inside the legal battles that transformed our nation -from the Salem witches to the Guantanamo Detainees.
May 28, 2021
Separating the flawed man from his ability to teach is the first step to appreciating Dershowitz's writing here. While my own estimation of the fundamental cases would produce a very different list, Dershowitz still provides a fascinating compilation of cases which he does a great job of explaining and placing into historical context. The key to reading and learning is to constantly question the author's premises and arguments, and one thing I can appreciate is Dershowitz answering many questions I had in the course of his lectures. His research is impeccable even if his arguments can, of course, be challenged. Overall, I give five stars for even though I didn't agree with all the cases chosen and arguments presented, it was well delivered, strongly supported, and academically invigorating.
Read
July 13, 2021Yes, this lawyer has participated in cases that i don’t agree with, holds opinions that i don’t always support, but he knows how to engagingly explain important court cases. this was entertaining and incredibly helpful as an introduction.
May 30, 2020
I loved it. But my one bit of criticism would be Alan saying in passing that the origin of Bin Laden's ideology is Wahhabism from Saudi. That is factually incorrect, Bin Laden in his diary wrote that he was influenced by Turkey's former prime minister Necmettin Erbakan & the Muslim Brotherhood (Group founded in Egypt by Egyptians). Even the leader of AlAQaeda, Ayman Al Zawahiri (Egyptian), confirmed in a video released in 2014: “Osama bin Laden was part of the Muslim Brotherhood organization."
The way that this ideology reached Saudi is when the group fled persecution in Egypt, they were given refuge in the Arabian Gulf states cause they outwardly seemed like simple preachers fleeing persecution against religious people.
Also, that same terror group has committed countless terror attacks against Saudi because Saudi befriends the USA. Therefore the terrorist groups consider Saudis infidel puppets of the west. So, the accusation that Saudi supports terrorists is a false one.
Other than that, I loved the rest of it.
The way that this ideology reached Saudi is when the group fled persecution in Egypt, they were given refuge in the Arabian Gulf states cause they outwardly seemed like simple preachers fleeing persecution against religious people.
Also, that same terror group has committed countless terror attacks against Saudi because Saudi befriends the USA. Therefore the terrorist groups consider Saudis infidel puppets of the west. So, the accusation that Saudi supports terrorists is a false one.
Other than that, I loved the rest of it.
March 4, 2023
I could listen to Dershowitz lecture all day, and found this SO interesting!! I do think it's important to note this was written/recorded in 2006, and there have been some major policy/attitude changes since then- the majority of them positive.
May 22, 2019
quite interesting presepctives.
December 24, 2012
Scopes-transcripts reveal Bryan won, Darrow bigot, evolution is theory and random vs intelligent, racist darwin. Leo Frank-bigotry of anti-jew catholic era, lynched white jew, history is long term and verdict short term, takes small lie to tell big truth. Leopold Globe-read Nitche supermen, Darrow easy to agree with atheist and bribes, death penalty. Rosenberg-can't fight evil with evil, evil occurs if good people do nothing, verdicts may be wrong-no death penalty. OJ-if evidence tampered discredit cockroach, poor prosecution, most in US accused are guilty, evidence created doubt vs no reasonable doubt. Sacco Vanzetti-socialists anarchists, judge was bigot pres of harvard believed eugenics, scottish not proven. Claus VonBulow- needle dip vs swab, smoke in oxygen tent, drug abuse, 2% appeals reversed, Holmes-law is experience, appeals no jury 30 min each, if prosecution in media then defense in media. Goetz-self defense reasonable and proportional, law requires preserving life, most politicians were prosecutors. Tyson-perjury, judge skewed justice, jury deprived of full evidence, perhaps high % of false convictions, passion vs reason, Holmes-hard cases make bad law. Roe v Wade-brown v boe similar or not, wrong, privacy not in const, rights of people first, not appendage, when soul and life. justifying with repub ex, loss of lives. Lawrence vs TX-TJefferson against sodomy-nature/God, do no harm apply or not, do no injury or not, Render to Caesar-who creates, visit hospice of aids/hiv to learn what to tell grandkids, who creates who ends. Clinton-sex fib vs lie, high crimes misdemeanors, dem Johnson fire secy and stall reconstruction, lie is perjury vs did not know option, pay 750 and conspiracy vs what happened first, Bush Gore-disastrous like overturned racial laws, Alan consider listening to self in early lectures, emotion vs logic of law, liberal operative and conspiracy, votes determine outcome, FL law not followed, intention of pundits to determine outcome, intention of polls, procedural so not drug into again, objective view of facts, changed because of 911. Terrorist-slam founders and originalists and french resistance, compromise yields marginal results, fdr history and court stacking, history tells story vs emotional changes, churchill if compromise liberty and security gain neither,
Want to read
February 23, 2017referenced in newspaper article
March 11, 2011
Dershowitz is fascinating. In these 14 lectures, he runs through what he takes to be the most important court cases of the 20th (and very early 21st) Century. I'm impressed by his intelligence. He's full of interesting information, and he presents it well. I'm also impressed by his arbitrariness and inconsistency. He's arbitrary in his ethics. He presents no basis for rending ethical judgments (though he does so all throughout these lectures), save his own personal assessment or that of liberal society at the current time. Societal judgments of, say, fifty years ago mean nothing to him, but those of the present time seem to be decisive. This sort of arbitrary assessment is very amusing on the one hand, but quite maddening on the other. He's inconsistent in that he, at numerous times, opposes constitutional originalists, as he thinks that the Constitution is a living document (whatever that actually means). However, when a justice does something that he doesn't like, he'll consistently go back to the law (or Constitution) and say that such and such a law was not originally intended for the use in question. In other words, he's something of an originalist when it fits him. This makes me suspect "original intent" is ALWAYS the necessary place to land, and that the whole "living document" thing is just smoke... and not the good kind.
Criticisms aside, these lectures were packed with interesting information and analysis. Dershowitz is an able advocate and spokesman for the civil liberties, ACLU types.
Criticisms aside, these lectures were packed with interesting information and analysis. Dershowitz is an able advocate and spokesman for the civil liberties, ACLU types.
May 6, 2008
Insights on about 14 significant legal cases which Dershowitz judges to be among the most significant of the 20th Century. Cases include Roe vs. Wade, the Sacco & Vanzetti 1920's murder case, the Bush vs. Gore 2000 Presidential Election Supreme Court decision among others. If you, like I, have wonderded in the past how twelve people made the decision they made in the O.J. case, there is information here which you might find interesting. Also, if you remember the Mike Tyson rape case against that Indiana pagent contestent, you might find the additional information that the author presents as eye-opening as well. All in all, insightful and interesting, even if much of the book is a re-hash of information from a number of Dershowitz's earlier books.
May 15, 2013
Wish he had gone both broader and deeper. First of all, he addressed a disproportionate number of cases in which he himself was personally involved. That's a bit suspect, if you'll pardon the pun. Secondly, while he does get into some interesting details about the cases themselves, he doesn't always use those details to further the larger discussion--why are these cases "fundamental"? Not only how did they change our nation, but what do they say about the nation, both as it was and as it is today?
I would much sooner recommend Lawrence Friedman's series of lectures entitled "The American Legal Experience"--it does a better job with a similar goal.
I would much sooner recommend Lawrence Friedman's series of lectures entitled "The American Legal Experience"--it does a better job with a similar goal.
September 2, 2010
A look at fourteen significant court cases of the twentieth century. These are cases that made the news at the time, but are not often talked about today, even though they set precedents that will endure. In some of th later cases where the author had some involvement, there seems to be some of a self laudatory sense. Nevertheless, the selection of the cases and the presentation of the information was excellent.
November 30, 2018
Law and Experience
Professor Dershowitz discusses about cases that in his view are paradigms of American Law. In some of these judgments he worked as a lawyer, so one can expect that his account gives interesting details, despite the fact that his conclusions have some bias. The course centers in exposing the facts of the cases and the ways that american’s courts operate. Dershowitz storytelling captivates the listener.
Professor Dershowitz discusses about cases that in his view are paradigms of American Law. In some of these judgments he worked as a lawyer, so one can expect that his account gives interesting details, despite the fact that his conclusions have some bias. The course centers in exposing the facts of the cases and the ways that american’s courts operate. Dershowitz storytelling captivates the listener.
January 14, 2009
Really enjoyed listening to this one. Not only the legal information about each case was thorough, but what was happening during the years around the cases was given to give a fascinating historical perspective.
One of the best books I've listen to...entertaining, informative, and interesting.
One of the best books I've listen to...entertaining, informative, and interesting.
December 21, 2007
This was an installment of the Modern Scholars lecture series. It was fantastic! If you can get it through your local library or by any other means that I recommend that you give it a listen.
March 16, 2009
Highly recommended! Good and easy to understand narrative about court cases that resonate in our every day life and have set precedents for years to come.
February 16, 2010
Perhaps it should be called "Alan Dershowitz's Favorite Cases of the Twentieth Century", but it was very informative and very interesting nonetheless
March 24, 2011
This is a fascinating narrative. Hearing about the law from one of the great legal minds of our time is captivating.
February 15, 2012
Much more interesting than I expected. The end caught me by surprised because I didn't realized I had already breezed through all 14 lectures. It was a pleasure.
February 17, 2015
Interesting, but not overly in depth or bogged down in legalistic jargon. I'd heard of most of these cases.
December 9, 2015
I really enjoyed this audio book read by the lawyer himself, very accessible and entertaining look at great cases of the twentieth century
Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews