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25 to Life: The Truth, the Whole Truth, and Nothing but the Truth
One of the nation's toughest judges shares her stories of life on and off the bench, offering a candid perspective on her very controversial career. 30,000 first printing.
- GenresNonfictionCrimeLaw
352 pages, Hardcover
First published September 23, 2002
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
October 23, 2019
'25 to Life' is an autobiography by a Manhattan Supreme Court Justice (this book was published in 2002).
Leslie Crocker Snyder has very interesting stories to tell! Because she became a New York City criminal court judge, working her way up through the ranks, the cases she handled sometimes involved notorious gangland characters - famous local street thugs and New York Mafia killers. She was forced to sometimes tolerate constant police security - even occasionally her entire family had police security assigned to them, plus sometimes they were living in 'safe houses' - depending on the threat and the proven murderous rapsheet of the criminal. Contracts were put on her life during trial and after conviction.
Snyder grew up, attended school and began her career in an area - law - and in an America which does not welcome women in STEM or law/philosophy/business. Her struggles are not only revealing of a 1960's/1970's America, which still today does not apply the Constitution to women, they echo my own experiences in the 1960's/1970's.
I would like to take a moment to remind readers this was not a hundred years ago - women did not begin to really break glass ceilings in substantial numbers until about 2000.
Snyder was more fortunate than me - middle-class resources despite her academic father's moderate income as a scholar and a college teacher, highly educated environment, and an extremely supportive mom. She is extremely smart - which unfortunately wasn't part of my skillset!
; p
In the book, Snyder describes the tactics of some defense lawyers and prosecutors, some of which are very funny or shocking. She describes the limits and the freedom she has as a judge to decide cases, sentencing and law. Jurisdiction can overlap, politics from above her paygrade and the outside world can interfere with internal mechanics of running a courtroom, gangland defendants can menace juries and lawyers and witnesses. She also describes in some detail the crimes of certain murderers, thugs and drug lords who controlled entire neighborhoods for decades before finally coming before her in court. These are horrific crimes - drug-dealing turf murders, forced prostitution and rape, terrorized neighborhoods.
Snyder concludes her book with thoughts about how law works and what should be done to fix the problems. She talks about drug addiction - she agrees it is THE driving force behind most of the cases clogging the legal system and prisons with criminals and crime. She believes better probation options, drug treatment, educational opportunities, jobs, reintegration programs, and sentencing reform, are the answers to reducing crime. However, these common conclusions, which many public figures have discussed, cost money and many years of time to accomplish, as well as a focused effort to restructure entrenched interests and institutional customs.
Believe it or not, gentle reader, there are Scandinavian countries who have and are doing what many incarceration experts in America recommend - and they work!
https://www.theatlantic.com/internati...
The book is for general readers, and it is well written and organized. I do not think the issues and cases she discusses are at all dated. Only names have changed in these familiar-sounding crimes, many of which in Snyder's career involved the drug called 'crack' (cocaine). Today, there are many many more drug-related crimes clogging our courts. Opioids are the new top seller of gangs. As I write this, local cities are enduring an upsurge of gang wars, drugs being a growth market which is very competitive and lucrative. Gang units in police departments are being re-constituted. However, despite the often diligent and earnest police activity, mules, street sellers and prostitutes who are murdered by their drug dealers are considered victimless crimes, in my humble opinion.
Drug cartels have taken over Mexico turning it into a narco-state. Drug cartels are incredibly violent, powerful and evil, and currently, they often possess better weapons than police officers. There are/were other narco-state countries, too, past and current - Guinea-Bissau, Colombia, Suriname, Bolivia, and Venezuela for example. Through the years, I have read articles which posit maybe Pakistan and Afghanistan are narco-states as they are top producers of opium, even though drugs laws have been passed making any illegal drug production forbidden in these countries.
And then there is The Golden Triangle, well known to Vietnam veterans. If you are old enough to remember The Golden Triangle, I imagine you believed they had been put out of business! No, not.
From Wikipedia:
"There is the Golden Triangle, well known to Vietnam veterans. The Golden Triangle is the area where the borders of Thailand, Laos, and Myanmar meet at the confluence of the Ruak and Mekong rivers. The name "Golden Triangle"—coined by the CIA—is commonly used more broadly to refer to an area of approximately 950,000 square kilometres (367,000 sq mi) that overlaps the mountains of the three adjacent countries.
Along with Afghanistan in the Golden Crescent, it has been one of the largest opium-producing areas of the world, since the 1950s. Most of the world's heroin came from the Golden Triangle until the early 21st century when Afghanistan became the world's largest producer."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_...
Changing the subject to another intractable and unsolvable area of crime - even though very rarely seen by judges in court - rape.
Snyder established the first sex-crimes prosecution division in the country! Back then, there were few laws making rape a crime at all and few cops or lawyers were interested. But rapes are as ignored and unprosecuted today as they were in the 1990's despite the recent media interest in top chattering-class sex scandals. Today, it is the fault of labs being flooded with collected biological evidence that prosecutions are slow or none. The labs are unable to process rape kits in a timely manner because there are few dollars budgeted to process them. Rape is considered too common and not violent enough, and often hard to prosecute due to the situational witlessness of victims, to be given a large portion of small investigation budgets.
Snyder's book is an interesting snapshot of a late 20th-century judge's life and cases, but there is surprisingly not much difference between those decades and today.
Leslie Crocker Snyder has very interesting stories to tell! Because she became a New York City criminal court judge, working her way up through the ranks, the cases she handled sometimes involved notorious gangland characters - famous local street thugs and New York Mafia killers. She was forced to sometimes tolerate constant police security - even occasionally her entire family had police security assigned to them, plus sometimes they were living in 'safe houses' - depending on the threat and the proven murderous rapsheet of the criminal. Contracts were put on her life during trial and after conviction.
Snyder grew up, attended school and began her career in an area - law - and in an America which does not welcome women in STEM or law/philosophy/business. Her struggles are not only revealing of a 1960's/1970's America, which still today does not apply the Constitution to women, they echo my own experiences in the 1960's/1970's.
I would like to take a moment to remind readers this was not a hundred years ago - women did not begin to really break glass ceilings in substantial numbers until about 2000.
Snyder was more fortunate than me - middle-class resources despite her academic father's moderate income as a scholar and a college teacher, highly educated environment, and an extremely supportive mom. She is extremely smart - which unfortunately wasn't part of my skillset!
; p
In the book, Snyder describes the tactics of some defense lawyers and prosecutors, some of which are very funny or shocking. She describes the limits and the freedom she has as a judge to decide cases, sentencing and law. Jurisdiction can overlap, politics from above her paygrade and the outside world can interfere with internal mechanics of running a courtroom, gangland defendants can menace juries and lawyers and witnesses. She also describes in some detail the crimes of certain murderers, thugs and drug lords who controlled entire neighborhoods for decades before finally coming before her in court. These are horrific crimes - drug-dealing turf murders, forced prostitution and rape, terrorized neighborhoods.
Snyder concludes her book with thoughts about how law works and what should be done to fix the problems. She talks about drug addiction - she agrees it is THE driving force behind most of the cases clogging the legal system and prisons with criminals and crime. She believes better probation options, drug treatment, educational opportunities, jobs, reintegration programs, and sentencing reform, are the answers to reducing crime. However, these common conclusions, which many public figures have discussed, cost money and many years of time to accomplish, as well as a focused effort to restructure entrenched interests and institutional customs.
Believe it or not, gentle reader, there are Scandinavian countries who have and are doing what many incarceration experts in America recommend - and they work!
https://www.theatlantic.com/internati...
The book is for general readers, and it is well written and organized. I do not think the issues and cases she discusses are at all dated. Only names have changed in these familiar-sounding crimes, many of which in Snyder's career involved the drug called 'crack' (cocaine). Today, there are many many more drug-related crimes clogging our courts. Opioids are the new top seller of gangs. As I write this, local cities are enduring an upsurge of gang wars, drugs being a growth market which is very competitive and lucrative. Gang units in police departments are being re-constituted. However, despite the often diligent and earnest police activity, mules, street sellers and prostitutes who are murdered by their drug dealers are considered victimless crimes, in my humble opinion.
Drug cartels have taken over Mexico turning it into a narco-state. Drug cartels are incredibly violent, powerful and evil, and currently, they often possess better weapons than police officers. There are/were other narco-state countries, too, past and current - Guinea-Bissau, Colombia, Suriname, Bolivia, and Venezuela for example. Through the years, I have read articles which posit maybe Pakistan and Afghanistan are narco-states as they are top producers of opium, even though drugs laws have been passed making any illegal drug production forbidden in these countries.
And then there is The Golden Triangle, well known to Vietnam veterans. If you are old enough to remember The Golden Triangle, I imagine you believed they had been put out of business! No, not.
From Wikipedia:
"There is the Golden Triangle, well known to Vietnam veterans. The Golden Triangle is the area where the borders of Thailand, Laos, and Myanmar meet at the confluence of the Ruak and Mekong rivers. The name "Golden Triangle"—coined by the CIA—is commonly used more broadly to refer to an area of approximately 950,000 square kilometres (367,000 sq mi) that overlaps the mountains of the three adjacent countries.
Along with Afghanistan in the Golden Crescent, it has been one of the largest opium-producing areas of the world, since the 1950s. Most of the world's heroin came from the Golden Triangle until the early 21st century when Afghanistan became the world's largest producer."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_...
Changing the subject to another intractable and unsolvable area of crime - even though very rarely seen by judges in court - rape.
Snyder established the first sex-crimes prosecution division in the country! Back then, there were few laws making rape a crime at all and few cops or lawyers were interested. But rapes are as ignored and unprosecuted today as they were in the 1990's despite the recent media interest in top chattering-class sex scandals. Today, it is the fault of labs being flooded with collected biological evidence that prosecutions are slow or none. The labs are unable to process rape kits in a timely manner because there are few dollars budgeted to process them. Rape is considered too common and not violent enough, and often hard to prosecute due to the situational witlessness of victims, to be given a large portion of small investigation budgets.
Snyder's book is an interesting snapshot of a late 20th-century judge's life and cases, but there is surprisingly not much difference between those decades and today.
August 15, 2025
The memoir of Leslie Crocker Snyder, Prosecutor, Judge and candidate for Manhattan District Attorney.
As a groundbreaker in the New York Criminal Courts, Crocker Snyder was the first woman to serve on the homicide chart of the NYCDA's Office, first woman to lead the Sex Crimes Division at the DA's office then had a long career on the bench in Part 88 of the New York Supreme Court where she tried complicated, involved drug gang cases.
As a groundbreaker in the New York Criminal Courts, Crocker Snyder was the first woman to serve on the homicide chart of the NYCDA's Office, first woman to lead the Sex Crimes Division at the DA's office then had a long career on the bench in Part 88 of the New York Supreme Court where she tried complicated, involved drug gang cases.
January 23, 2021
What a lady! I enjoy reading about this remarkable judge and how she got where she is today. You could tell she has a true passion for the legal system. I enjoyed the variety of cases she discussed.
March 25, 2022
This is an autobiography of a judge.
The history of some of her cases is told with an explanation of the legal issues.
It is also a critique of our legal system.
The history of some of her cases is told with an explanation of the legal issues.
It is also a critique of our legal system.
June 29, 2024
Just okay. I already read a book about a woman judge and this was so similar that I didn’t finish it.
July 21, 2008
It was an interesting look at the justice system from the judges viewpoint.
March 6, 2012
My review at Bookreporter.com - http://www.bookreporter.com/reviews/2...
June 10, 2009
too self-serving, IMHO
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews