Law Biography

A short, accessible collection of key historic writings about presidential impeachment, as part of a new Penguin Classics series on liberty and constitutional rights.

It is true that some people are very damaged. It is not true that they are all unsalvageable. The Lifer and the Lawyer raises questions about childhood trauma, religion, race, the purpose of punishment, and a criminal justice system that requires harmless old men to die in prison.

Lloyd Constantine began his career in legal services, representing impoverished clients in civil rights and constitutional cases. Decades later, he would make headlines for representing retailers and consumers against a cartel that undermined one of the fundamental tenets of commerce in America: competition. A man who thrives on competition himself, Constantine now gives us the insider's story on the biggest antitrust lawsuit in history - a case that pitted his small firm against financial-industry giants Visa and MasterCard, along with Clifford-Chance, the largest law firm in the world.

Drugs, Adultery, Bribery, Homosexuality, corruption - and the Supreme Court?!? Your high school history teachers never gave you a book like this one! Secret Lives of the Supreme Court features outrageous and uncensored profiles of America’s most legendary justices - complete with hundreds of little-known, politically incorrect, and downright wacko facts.

Near the beginning of The Autobiography of an Execution, David Dow lays his cards on the table. "People think that because I am against the death penalty and don't think people should be executed, that I forgive those people for what they did. Well, it isn't my place to forgive people, and if it were, I probably wouldn't. I'm a judgmental and not very forgiving guy. Just ask my wife."

The "Lackawanna Six" were young men, born of Yemeni families long settled in upstate New York, who took a trip to Pakistan and Afghanistan and spent time in an al-Qaeda training camp long before the specter of 9/11, before most people had even heard of Osama Bin Laden, and before the existence of the Homeland Security Act.

Reading Ten Minutes from Normal, one is instantly absorbed in what it's like to be a "normal" person who goes to work at the White House as a part of the president's inner circle. Told in Karen Hughes's disarmingly down-to-earth, warm, often funny, and frank voice, the book is a remarkable blend of an ordinary woman's life, with all its compromises and everyday decisions, and a keenly insightful look at American politics and America's forty-third president.

In Strong Advocate, Thomas Strong, one of the most successful trial lawyers in Missouri's history, chronicles his adventures as a contemporary personal injury attorney. Though the profession is held in low esteem by the general public, Strong entered the field with the right motives: to help victims who have been injured by defective products or through the negligence of others.

As a twelve-year-old in rural southwest Missouri during the Great Depression, Strong bought a cow, then purchased others as he could afford them, and eventually financed his education with the milk he sold.

When Clarence Thomas joined the Supreme Court in 1991, he found with dismay that it was interpreting a very different Constitution from the one the framers had written - the one that had established a federal government manned by the people's own elected representatives, charged with protecting citizens' inborn rights while leaving them free to work out their individual happiness themselves, in their families, communities, and states.

In his meteoric, 13-year rise to fame, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. led a mass movement for civil rights - with his relentless peaceful, non-violent protests, public demonstrations, and eloquent speeches. But as violent threats cast a dark shadow over Dr. King's life, Swanson hones in on James Earl Ray, a bizarre, racist prison escapee who tragically ends King's life.

As a child, Joseph Beck heard the stories - when other lawyers came up with excuses, his father courageously defended a Black man charged with raping a White woman. Now a lawyer himself, Beck reconstructs his father's role in State of Alabama vs. Charles White, Alias, a trial that was much publicized when Harper Lee was 12 years old.

Louis Freeh led the Federal Bureau of Investigation from 1993 to 2001, through some of the most tumultuous times in its long history. This is the story of a life in law enforcement and of one man's determined struggle to strengthen and reform the FBI while ensuring its freedom from political interference.

Philip's remarkable career in law in London led to recommendations from which he gained unprecedented access to leading lights in politics and the trade unions. He warns about the many pitfalls that trap the unwary, even what happened to a High Court judge! He recounts many fascinating events, beginning with a landmark case while articled, all the way through acting for such colourful clients as impresarios, actors, airline captains, and members of both houses of Parliament, to ultimately being chosen out of thousands of solicitors by the Prime Minister himself for his Party's prestigious new London headquarters.

Welcome to another journey into the dark, dysfunctional underbelly of New Mexico. Our reluctant hero navigates his way through new towns and clients, facing multiple near-death experiences as he fights for the rights of the guilty and absurdly stupid. Along the way, you will encounter steroid-enhanced hillbillies, bitch-slapping cross-dressers, and gun-toting Nazis, all out on a binge.

Most Americans know Andrew Jackson as a frontier rebel against political and diplomatic norms, a "populist" champion of ordinary people against the elitist legacy of the Founding Fathers. Many date the onset of American democracy to his 1829 inauguration. Despite his reverence for the "sovereign people", however, Jackson spent much of his career limiting that sovereignty, imposing new and often unpopular legal regimes over American lands and markets.

In this remarkable book, Sandra Day O’Connor explores the law, her life as a Supreme Court Justice, and how the Court has evolved and continues to function, grow, and change as an American institution. Tracing some of the origins of American law through history, people, ideas, and landmark cases, O’Connor sheds new light on the basics, exploring through personal observation the evolution of the Court and American democratic traditions.

Spiegel Bestseller. "Wenn es um Menschlichkeit geht, gibt es kein Wenn und Aber". Er war als Soldat beim D-Day, als Ermittler bei der Befreiung der Konzentrationslager und als Ankläger bei den Nürnberger Prozessen dabei: Benjamin Ferencz hat ein ganzes Jahrhundert miterlebt und sein Leben der Gerechtigkeit gewidmet. Unermüdlich hat Ben, wie er sich selbst nennt, sich für eine gerechte und friedliche Welt eingesetzt.

Imagine having everything taken away from you - permanently - with no hope of resuming a normal life. This is the case for many teenagers in America who are tried and convicted as adults for the crime of murder. Here Susan Kuklin takes you behind bars for frank interviews with a collection of young men who will spend the better part of their lives in jail. She lets them speak for themselves, providing the raw details of their incarceration and the anger, despair, and surprising hope they experience every day. Kuklin also provides an in-depth look at the American penal system, highlighting its many intricacies and inequities while focusing on capital cases involving juveniles.

In a fascinating blend of biography and history, Joseph Tartakovsky tells the epic and unexpected story of our Constitution through the eyes of 10 extraordinary individuals - some renowned, like Alexander Hamilton and Woodrow Wilson, and some forgotten, like James Wilson and Ida B. Wells-Barnett. Tartakovsky brings to life their struggles over our supreme law from its origins in revolutionary America to the era of Obama and Trump. Tartakovsky shows how America’s unique constitutional culture grapples with questions like democracy, free speech, and the role of government.

Floy Turner is back, but this time she's knee-deep in murder, kidnappings, and burglaries. Leaving behind her Florida Highway Patrol Trooper hat and Miami's highways and byways, she dives into the world of high-level criminal investigations. Not only does she love it, but she finds she has a real knack for it.