[.ca] Black's Law: A Criminal Lawyer Reveals His Defense ... (ISBN 0684863065)

From Amazon.com:
The title of criminal defense lawyer Roy Black's first book alludes to the renowned legal dictionary, and the reference is appropriate: Black is beyond a reasonable doubt the definitive defense attorney. Considered among the best advocates for the accused in the United States, he has had clients that included William Kennedy Smith and Marv Albert. But in Black's Law, the former public defender and law professor recounts the strategies and tactics he employed to safeguard the freedom of four lesser-known clients: Luis Alvarez, Thomas Knight, Steve Hicks, and Fred De La Mata. In "Alvarez" (Black refers to each of his four examples by case name), a Miami cop is put on trial for shooting an African American suspect with no previous criminal record, pitting Black against the office of Dade County state attorney Janet Reno, who desperately needed a conviction to avert widespread race riots. In "Knight," Black must convince a federal appeals court that an insane multiple killer was condemned to death row by the bad lawyering of his first four attorneys. In "Hicks," a young bartender finds himself charged with murder after his girlfriend dies of an accidental gunshot wound; Black defends him against incriminating circumstantial evidence and the cluster-bungling efforts of police investigators. And in "De La Mata," Black takes a break from the murder trials to work on a money-laundering case. The aforementioned Black's Law Dictionary defines a defense attorney as "a \ol\cawyer who files appearance in behalf of defendant and represents such in civil or criminal case," but Roy Black's account underscores how such technical definitions fail to convey the essential role defense attorneys play in our adversarial system of justice. Black's Law is not just about four individual defendants, it's about the rights to which all defendants are entitled--and for which people like Roy Black fight--in a court of law. --Tim Hogan

Re: Florida cases: Roy Swafford and Peter Ventura::
For those interested in reading the four to three vote Florida Supreme Court opinions regarding two more death sentenced persons whose innocence is an authentic issue, please go to www.flcourts.org, then go to "Opinions and Rules", then chose the correct year and scroll down to the following two cases: Roy Swafford: April 18, 2002 Case No. 92.173 Peter Ventura: May 24, 2001 Case No. 93.839 These two cases are findable under "Court Orders: Case Disposition Orders" and "Briefs in Other Cases" sections of the "Press Page": Roy Swafford: March 26, 2004 Case Nos. 03.931 and 03.1153

More Florida Death Penalty Litigation History::
First an introduction: From 1986 - 1992 I was employed as an investigator at the Office of Capital Collateral Representative (CCR) in Tallahassee, Florida, where Scharlette Holdman worked as the supervisor of the investigators from October 1985 - March 1988. I have known Scharlette since the mid-1970s death penalty debates at Florida State University, including the debate between Professor Richard L. Rubenstein (author of "After Auschwitz", "My Brother Paul", "The Cunning of History: Mass Death and the American Future", "The Age of Triage", "Religion and Eros", and other books) vs. Baptist Minister and Philosopher Will Campbell (the debate was circa 1977). Her office, the Clearinghouse on Criminal Justice, was in the same wing of the Petroleum Building as my office at Common Cause in Florida (where I was a full-time volunteer during the day and worked at the Brown Derby Restaurant at night from 1981 - 1986). The Petroluem Building was next to the State Capital, the Florida Supreme Court and the State Archives and Library. When it was torn down, the space and the space for the first CCR office became the Mary Brogan Art and Science Museum and a storm water retaining pond. The Petroleum Building was called by those of us who worked or volunteered there the "Forces of Good" (FOG) Building -- as opposed to FOE -- Forces of Evil, such as Associated Industries, the Chamber and other big business interests in Florida. The FOG building also included (not an exhaustive list) the Clean Water Action Project, the ACLU, NOW, Florida Legal Services, Migrant Farmworker's Organization (directed by Cliff Thaell, who has more recently been a Leon County Commissioner for about ten years or more), Mike Vasilinda's television news service. About every two years at CCR there was a Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist-Maoist purge due to the pressures and dysfunctions of the work and the people. I survived two such purges. With the third, I was the first to go in the spring and summer of 1992. When Scharlette had essentially declared war upon CCR in 1987 and thereafter, some of us decided to investigate her background given some things that we had heard. Low and behold, Scharlette's claim of a PhD in anthropology from the University of Hawaii and a Master's Degree from (if my memory serves me correctly) the University of Birmingham don't exist. We used Scharlette's Social Security number, her maiden name and her married name -- with all this information, both universities had no record of Scharlette having received any degrees from these institutions. As I understand Scharlette, she needed the "degrees" to confer upon her "credentials" that she really never needed as she is indeed then and now a national expert on capital mitigation, litigation, etc. However Scharlette can be deceptive, as her lack of a PhD and Masters so demonstrates. Even today she claims to have the degrees as when she gives presentations regarding capital cases, she is identified as "Dr." A key word search of her name will bring up some of the presentations that she has made in the past several years with the title "Dr." preceding her name. If she has received any honorary or other degrees since 1990, that would be new information for me. If anyone can assist in this matter, please contact me at phar208452@aol.com or my mailing address: P.O. Box 38458, Tallahassee, FL 32315-8458. Thank you.

Legal Education for all:
A great book. Written by a expert in communication. Each case brought you into the defense, you believe in the actions brought forward to give not only a legal defense by our constitution but to see a inocent person never is incarcerated,if that ever comes to pass. I would hope Mr. Black will write more, he is able to take a very complicated subject and break it down to a laymans understanding.

Gripping real life drama & civics lesson rolled into one:
I found this non-fiction book to be as captivating a read - and frankly, much better written - than many of the fictional legal thrillers and courtroom dramas filling the bookstore shelves these days. Add to that the fact that this book offers great insight into our criminal justice system and the import role of the criminal defense attorney in it, and you have a book that is, in my opinion, a must-read. All that being said, I think that perhaps what impressed me most about this book is what is not in it - celebrity name dropping. Black is clearly set apart from some of his colleagues in the high profile defense lawyer set by his choices of cases to include in this book. Having represented a number of "household names" in cases which received considerable media attention, Black writes in his book about none of them, choosing instead cases in which he represented people outside of the public eye and who came from a variety of walks of life. He should be commended for this and his book is rendered all the more impactful by the lack of the "tabloid" element.

Brilliant--Restores your faith in the legal profession!:
Black's Law is brilliantly written and thoughtfully argued. More inspiring, however, is that it reminds us that innocent people do at times get railroaded or scapegoated for political reasons or just plain bad luck. A shame that we don't all have a principled, intelligent man like Roy Black to fight for us. It's a real treat to read something this good. Buy it now!