Doing justice A prosecutor's thoughts on crime, punishment, and the rule of law

Review by Choice Review

As former US Attorney in New York, Bharara held one of the most powerful positions in the criminal justice system. He has taken that experience and turned it into a book ostensibly about the problems in our criminal justice system. If that goal had been met it would be a great achievement. However, Bharara falls far short of being truly critical of the system and those who work in it. Instead he walks a fine line between criticizing prosecutors/judges for their failures and downplaying their failures as unintentional even when they have disastrous consequences. In a story of a woman wrongly convicted spending over a decade in prison, he focuses on how she spent her time in prison getting a college education instead of addressing those responsible for the violation. This downplays the abuse of victim's rights while exonerating those responsible for it. Too much critical analysis is missing to be a scholarly work, and while the general public may find the anecdotes interesting as a look behind the scenes, they too will be left with a distorted view of the current problems in the criminal justice system. Summing Up: Not recommended. --William R. Pruitt, Virginia Wesleyan University

Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.

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Review by New York Times Review

Am I the only woman in America who considers Preet Bharara her podcast husband? I am guessing not. His show, "Stay Timed With Preet," is a salve, an indulgence, a lifeline: It coasts along not just on the vitality of Bharara's intelligence (uncommonly useful, given that he once was the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, and so many urgent questions these days are legal ones), and not just on his ability to do a good interview (though there's that too; one wonders if years of quizzing witnesses and summarizing cases made him understand the rhythms of a good story), but on his warmth, humor, reasonableness. Donald J. Trump may be laying dynamite beneath the floorboards of our most beloved institutions, democracies here and elsewhere may have blown a flat, but Preet's still there, calmly issuing dispatches from Planet Rational, reminding us each week that humane people with fine minds and old-fashioned concerns (integrity! character! truth, justice, the commonweal!) are still very much a part of public life. Plus, his children think he's a dork. United States attorneys: They're just like us. Given how busy his tenure was - his office prosecuted everyone from the Times Square Bomber to the two top legislators in Albany - and given how rare a varietal he is of charm and conscientiousness and intellect, Bharara seems the ideal candidate to write a fine memoir. But "Doing Justice: A Prosecutor's Thoughts on Crime, Punishment, and the Rule of Law" isn't a memoir, exactly; had it been an uncomplicated reminiscence, 1 would have enjoyed it much more. What is it instead? In his preface, Bharara explains that for years, he's wanted to write a guide for young prosecutors, one that draws "not from legal texts and treatises but from the real-life human dilemmas that would perplex them every day." So: "Letters to a Young Lawyer," let's call it, based on a lived curriculum. But as Bharara was developing his themes, he adds, he realized that this book "might in fact be a guide to justice generally, not only for practitioners, but for real people who strive and struggle in their homes and offices to be fair and just." Which is all fine in theory - but only sometimes works in practice. Bharara seems to be addressing would-be prosecutors on some pages ("So your inquiry has come to an end") and a wider audience on others ("And this of course is true everywhere in work and life, this attention to duty, detail and mission"), and he doesn't seem to settle into a common register until the second half of the book. More vexing still: In pouring his memoir into the mold of an advice book, Bharara winds up speaking in aphorisms and bromides. Of all the counselors in literature to channel, why on earth would he choose Polonius? Yet here he is, on the importance of establishing an office with an ethical culture: "Values are more about the forest than about the trees." On the importance of hard work: "Ambitious people tend to think of every endeavor as a ballgame in which they're going to pitch a perfect game, ft doesn't work that way." To be successful, he goes on to explain, "you've got to do it one pitch at a time." 1 half wonder whether "Doing Justice" works better as an audiobook, which Bharara personally reads aloud. I suspect he's had to read much of what he's written aloud, whether it's for speeches, closing arguments or his podcast. What can seem profound in your earbuds can seem facile on the page. Just think of the difference between listening to a TED Talk and reading one. Is all of this book filled with Polonius gunk? No. Most chapters delight or provoke in some way, if you mentally redact the fortune-cookie sentences (of which there are mercifully fewer in the second half). Bharara divides "Doing Justice" into four parts - Inquiry, Accusation, Judgment and Punishment-thereby following the rhythms of a criminal case, and almost every chapter returns, either directly or via roundabout, to Bharara's basic contention, pithily summarized on Page 58: "In the end, the law doesn't do justice. People do." (This is a popular theme of his podcast, too: that democracy depends on good-faith actors to function properly.) His book is ultimately about ordinary fallibility, and how those responsible for the dispensation of justice are regular humans, prone to act as humans do. It is filled with sobering stories about error and - in the more beautiful, memorable cases - ingenuity, determination, redemption. There's a chapter about the difficulty of overcoming confirmation bias. There's a chapter about the paradox of the cooperating witness, who's high in information and low in character - "the linchpin of your case is also your Achilles' heel." There are chapters about the futility of torture, the difficulty of determining fair sentences and the importance of walking away from a case, even when there are sunk costs. The chapter about the idiosyncrasies and hidden frailties of judges is particularly eye-opening. (A limitation I'd never considered: Judges don't get to watch fellow judges in action. "Their observational experience is largely stopped in time at the moment of being sworn in.") In fact, the entire Judgment section, about the courtroom phase of the judicial process, may be the book's most captivating, for the very reasons Bharara finds an old-fashioned trial so captivating: It's cinema-ready. (Watch for the case of the battered prostitute seeking her stolen cash. Not since John Gutfreund played a $1 million round of Liar's Poker has the serial number on a slip of American currency been so consequential.) Bharara, who enjoyed a high profile and (mostly) favorable press attention during his tenure from 2009 to 2017, does not show a lot of leg in this book, nor does he settle many scores. Yes, he tweaks The Wall Street Journal for highlighting the fact that he went after Raj Rajaratnam, a fellow immigrant from the same region of the world. "My goodness, there's a South Asian defendant, and there's a South Asian prosecutor!" he writes. "You know where this happens every day? India." But he says virtually nothing about SAC Capital's Steven A. Cohen, whose wolfish appetite for insider information Bharara's office could never quite prove, and his words about Trump, the man who fired him, are few. And why is this, exactly? Considering Bharara's emphasis on old-fashioned values - duty, discretion, decency - and their application to the law, it seems strange that he wouldn't offer some words about what happened to the United States on Nov. 8, 2016, when the worst-faith actor imaginable was suddenly elected president. Did the country have a heart attack? Or is it merely undergoing a stress test? I wish he'd said. What Bharara does offer, however, is an inspired and slightly perverse idea about how to salvage public discourse in 2019: We should take our cues from American criminal trials, in which both parties are obliged to consider flaws in their own arguments and understand the mind-set of the other side. Assertions must be evidence-based; research must be rigorous; decorum is paramount. "You can't call your adversary a 'low-I.Q. person,' " he notes. "You can't argue the prosecution is political; and you can't make sweeping biased statements." The first thing we do, let's revive all the lawyers. Bharara, as usual, makes a very strong case. Throughout the book there is an emphasis on old-fashioned values like duty and decency.

Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [July 11, 2019]

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Review by Booklist Review

More than ever, Americans are cognizant of terms of law. Phrases such as cooperative witness and plea bargain are bandied about with disarming familiarity. Perhaps this is due to the preponderance of news about crimes both petty and major; perhaps it is the omnipresence of courtroom dramas in fiction and film. Whatever the source, the legal world can be tricky to fathom and downright intimidating to anyone caught in its glare. Bharara, the former U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, examines the scope of jurisprudence from the vantage point of federal interpretation and execution but also advises citizens on how to stay on the right side of the law in public and private. Bright with anecdotes from his lengthy and illustrious career, Bharara's razor-edge judgments about punishment, procedure, outcome, and outlook address issues of governance and moral grounding that form the crux of the nature of justice. Bharara speaks with a clear, firm, and engaging voice in this essential primer about the importance of a fair and open justice system.--Carol Haggas Copyright 2010 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

In this fascinating combination of memoir and ethical-legal manifesto, former U.S. attorney Bharara posits that "the model of the American trial has something to teach us... about debate and disagreement and truth and justice." He leads readers through the work of the U.S. Attorney's Office in Manhattan, in sections dedicated to inquiry (asking questions, conducting fair interrogations), accusation (choosing if and when to levy charges), judgment (trials, verdicts), and punishment (sentencing, prison reform). His prose has the quality of a well-written speech, with philosophical pronouncements ("Doing justice sometimes requires... a spark of creativity or innovation") followed by supporting tales from both his legal career and his personal life, recounted in a superbly accessible and conversational, even humorous, tone (at one point contrasting media depictions of justice with "the real world... where testosterone doesn't flow like a river in the streets"). Bharara also reminds readers that, while the law is an incredible tool, it is people who create or corrupt justice. With its approachable human moments, tragic and triumphant cases, heroic investigators, and depictions of hardworking everyday people, this book is a rare thing: a page-turning work of practical moral philosophy. Agent: Elyse Cheney, the Cheney Agency. (Mar.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

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Review by Library Journal Review

Prosecutors tend to work behind the scenes in the justice system. This book highlights their role on a Federal level as reflected in the operation of the Southern District of New York's U.S. Attorney's Office. Bharara (New York Univ. Sch. of Law) held that position for more than seven years until his firing in 2017. This case study focuses on his tenure in the Southern District, covering a variety of high-profile cases on topics ranging from insider trading and terrorism to miscreant cops and abusive correctional officers. Initial chapters explore case inquiry issues involving confirmation bias, wrongful convictions, confessions and interrogations, and innovative workarounds in a culturally conservative environment. Sections are organized around traditional phases of the justice process from accusation and trial preparation to a reconsideration of punishment and the need for reform. Using an informal style, the author recalls successes, failures, and controversies as well as extended personal insights, and an emphasis on stories rather than statistics. Though rooted in New York City, the cases and issues discussed are often national in scope. VERDICT This is a relevant and thought-provoking -commentary on truth and justice from the unique perspective of a high-level former U.S. Attorney.-Antoinette Brinkman, formerly with Southwest Indiana Mental Health Ctr. Lib., Evansville © Copyright 2019. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

The former federal prosecutor for the Southern District of New York skillfully explains how he approached his job, offering a mixture of guiding principles and compelling anecdotes.Although appointed by Barack Obama in 2009 and fired in 2017 by Donald Trump, Bharara refrains from either praising Obama or settling scores with Trump. The author organizes his book according to the way a criminal case normally unfolds: "Inquiry," about investigating an alleged crime; "Accusation," about whether to actually charge a defendant with breaking a law; "Judgment," about the court proceedings; and "Punishment," about the steps taken when a defendant is found guilty. Unlike many lawyers who write books, Bharara refreshingly avoids jargon, striking a conversational tone and regularly employing analogies and metaphors that make his points easily understandable. For example, while explaining that stockbrokers complete countless legal transactions while also cheating the system, Bharara writes that just because a motorist usually observes the posted speed limit, that behavior does not constitute evidence that the driver never exceeds the speed limit. Among the most compelling anecdotes, Bharara explains the successful 2010 prosecution of Faisal Shahzad, the Times Square Bomber, and offers clear reasons, however controversial, why his office never prosecuted high-ranking Wall Street and banking executives for the consequences of the 2008 financial meltdown that harmed millions of Americans. Throughout the book, the author admits to uncertainties about whether or not to prosecute apparent wrongdoing in a variety of cases, and he candidly expresses regrets about some of his decisions. As he astutely notes, sometimes there are no "correct" answerse.g., in the social media era, how should a prosecutor deal with a Facebook post that a young man plans to enter a school with a rifle, before violence occurs? Rarely does Bharara offer glimpses into his private life, but he does share a few instances of the calumny he has faced due to his Indian heritage.An engaging tour from beginning to end. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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Truth is Elusive: The Boys During the summer of 1989, between my junior and my senior years of college, I worked for an hourly wage at my uncle's small insurance business in Long Branch, New Jersey. It was tedious work that involved literally typing thousands of names, addresses, and phone num­bers into a desktop computer from the phone book to create a database for mailers advertising my uncle's business. This was not the most auspicious precursor to a distinguished career in the law, so I welcomed any respite from encroaching carpal tun­nel syndrome that hot Jersey summer. One afternoon in August, I got a call from my best friend from high school, Jessica Goldsmith Barzilay, who was also on summer break before her junior year at SUNY Binghamton. The office receptionist, who also happened to be my aunt, trans­ferred the call to the phone closest to my desk. The most pleas­ant and upbeat personality I know, Jessica has always been quick to laugh and even quicker to make other people laugh. Her face is forever crinkled in a smile. There was no smile in Jessica's voice on the afternoon of August 20, 1989. It was the first of several devastating phone calls I received from her in the span of a few months. In this first call, she was trying to tell me something, but I couldn't make out what she was saying, because she was crying--not in the ordinary way people weep because something merely sad has happened, she was quaking the way people do when something tragic has come to pass. While she struggled to deliver her unspeakable news, my first thoughts went to her parents, at whose home my brother and I would have des­sert every Thanksgiving in a long-running tradition. Next I thought about her two sisters, who had also gone to high school with us. After a minute or two, Jessica composed herself. The news was about her parents' lifelong friends. "Jose and Kitty are dead," she said. Not only were they dead, but they had been murdered--viciously murdered--their bodies literally blown apart by shotgun blasts, in their own living room and at close range. They had been eating strawberries and ice cream on the couch, watching The Spy Who Loved Me . We learned later that the blasts were so violent, Jose's head was almost severed from his body. I had long heard about Jose and Kitty from Jessica. Jessica's parents had lived near them for a time when they were all young and poor and trying to make a go of it in Queens. They rented small apartments near each other and did what young, striv­ing couples do. They worked hard, tried to make ends meet, and dreamed big. An inseparable foursome, they spent holidays and weekends with each other, played tennis and Monopoly together. In the years since these humble beginnings, Jose, an immigrant from Cuba, had moved the family to Beverly Hills, grown very successful in Hollywood, and in every way had lived and achieved the American dream. Jose and Kitty had two sons. I'd heard about them too because, growing up, Jessica had a crush on the older one, who went on to Princeton. Both boys were handsome and athletic. Now they were orphans. On the night of the murders, police received a hysterical call from one of the brothers, who said he had come upon his parents' bodies. Cops sped to the family residence, a $5 mil­lion mansion that had once been Michael Jackson's home and before that Elton John's. There they found the younger son on the front lawn, curled up in the fetal position. Inside they found the bloodbath. I had never met this family, but I felt I knew them well through Jessica's stories over the years. Now I felt searing vicarious grief listening to my friend sob through the grisly details. When Jes­sica had calmed down enough, I thought it was okay to find out more. Were there suspects? No suspects yet, she said, but the police believed it might be a Mafia killing on account of the brutality. It could have been a vengeance hit, but she had no idea who would want to do such a thing. And for some time, the cops had no clue either. Eventually, this murder-mystery would become the second most sensational criminal case of the 1990s, eclipsed only by the trial of O. J. Simpson. Kitty and Jose were the parents of Lyle and Erik Menendez, and they had been slaughtered by their own sons. It was a long while, however, before this awful truth became known. And longer still before Jessica and her family would believe it. Jessica couldn't attend the funeral in Princeton, because she needed to get back for the start of classes. Her parents attended the services--which had to be closed casket--and reported that Erik seemed especially heartbroken over his parents' deaths. Both children, they said, spoke lovingly and eloquently about Jose and Kitty. I remember the next time Jessica called me in tears. It was months later, in March 1990. I was sitting on the hard twin mat­tress in my tiny college dorm room with an architect's lamp on, senior thesis coming due, and procrastinating as usual. Her voice was cracking but calmer than it had been in August. She said, "They mistakenly arrested the boys." That's always how she referred to Lyle and Erik. Even now, three decades later, these two men--now well into middle age and serving life sentences for parricide--are "the boys." Frozen in time, pre-murder. "How could the cops make such a terrible mistake?" she asked. It wasn't a purely rhetorical question. I was heading to Columbia Law School in the fall, and I suppose she was plain­tively asking me to channel some future legal self, to explain how such a profound police error could occur (and how it could be fixed). I flinched before asking the obvious question. "Jessica, could they have done it?" Her reply was adamant: "No. One hundred percent no." I said, "Can you be sure?" "I know they didn't do it," Jessica said. "I know it, I know it." I was convinced. Months after the arrest, Jessica called again. She had just spo­ken with one of the boys' aunts. Lyle and Erik had confessed. The boys had killed their parents, they claimed, in self-defense, after what they said was years of mental, physical, and sexual abuse by Jose. And why Kitty? Lyle would later be heard in a taped session with his psychiatrist saying he killed their mother to put her "out of her misery." The confession and change of plea was about to become public, and the Menendez aunt wanted Jessica's family to hear it from her before it was on the news. I asked Jessica how her dad was taking it. "This is worse than losing Kitty and Jose," he had told her. What followed was a six-year odyssey involving an epic legal battle over the admissibility of the psychiatrist's recordings, fights over the self-defense doctrine, appeals to the California Supreme Court, multiple mistrials, and finally murder convic­tions of both sons in 1996. All of this would play out in public and transfix the country. The drama spawned multiple books and a TV series. Jessica even testified at the first and third trials. By the time of the confession, I was a law student. But on that evening when Jessica first learned the truth, we did not discuss the criminal law, didn't speculate about the viability of legal defenses or the possible sentence Lyle and Erik might receive if convicted. What Jessica talked about was her own gullibility, what she had gotten wrong, what she had missed. All those years. What had she not seen or chosen not to see? What pain and suffering had she been blind to? The shooting was not an impulsive heat-of-the-moment act. The crime had been meticu­lously arranged and planned and then carefully covered up. Lyle went on a spending spree afterward with his inheritance. He bought a Porsche, a Rolex watch, and a restaurant in Princeton. What signs of monstrosity had Jessica ignored? The deaths were heartbreaking and the boys' role in them excruciating, but what was also painfully gnawing at Jessica was her own mis­placed trust, her blindness to even the possibility of what turned out to be the truth. We talked all night, until the sun came up. The boys had done it. Jessica knew they hadn't. But they had. She tried to make sense of it. We tried to make sense of it. Much later, Jessica and her family would recall things that seemed odd and even terrible that might have signaled some roiling family tension below the perfect American dream sur­face. Jose was a tough dad, uncompromising and harsh with the boys. One time, he drove twelve-year-old Erik to a cemetery at night and left him crying among the tombstones in an effort to toughen him up. There were other stories like that, which Jes­sica has shared over the decades since. But the boys had turned out so well, everyone believed, that such incidents were forgot­ten or dismissed--until the murders. Or more accurately, until the boys' confession to the murders. Our all-nighter on the phone produced no epiphanies, save one: you can't know anything about anybody . You can't ever really know someone else's mind or someone else's heart, what some­one else is capable of. I mean, really know. That seems an appar­ent if depressing fact of life, but it was far less obvious to a couple of twenty-two-year-olds who had yet to live and work in the world. It was the first moment I realized that anyone could be guilty of anything. There was something shattering about that. Shat­tering, but also instructive. To this day, when people tell me they know someone didn't do it, I think of Lyle and Erik Menendez. It's a sad but necessary reflex in a certain line of work. Because sometimes, all belief and faith and instinct to the contrary, the privileged sons of millionaires massacre their own parents. Excerpted from Doing Justice: A Prosecutor's Thoughts on Crime, Punishment, and the Rule of Law by Preet Bharara All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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