Half-Moon and Empty Stars.

• Author: Rogers, C.D.

When two legal giants--Gerry Spence and Alan M. Dershowitz--publish two recent novels, what insights do they reveal about current legal issues, their perceptions (both public and private images), and their finesse with fictional creativity?

Both lawyer-novelists explore cutting-edge issues. Spence in Half-Moon and Empty Stars focuses on justice in the U.S. for the disadvantaged--any minority--although his victims are Arapahoe Indians.

"If the law could bring justice to the American Indian there was hope for the law," thought Abner Hill, the idealistic lawyer. However, "if there wasn't any hope for the law, then the country was in ... trouble."

Hill, dubbed "Indian Lawyer," seeks to save Charlie, an Arapahoe twin who chooses his native way of life, from Wyoming's gas chamber. Although Charlie is innocent, he is trapped in a town of prejudices and power structures where political posturing and vote-counting in the upcoming governor's election overpowers justice.

His trial--several exciting pages--suggests trouble exists in our legal system. This includes the power of money's influence, flawed due process, use of witness without respect for the oath of truth, police brutality, and prejudicial thinking. It also struggles with the choices and respect for individual identity. Charlie's twin brother, for example, has become a Wall Street investor and followed the white identity. His plane, yacht, and one-hundred dollar bills draw obsequious respect from the sheriff; his twin's poverty, honesty, peace, and concern for retaining Spirit Mountain for his tribe's heritage result in insults to human dignity.

The novel contains Spence's perceptions of justice and identity previously seen (with more finesse) in his nonfiction From Freedom to Slavery and How to Argue and Win Every Time. "I think ultimate justice is freedom," writes Spence through the speech of lawyer Hill.

And through the mouths of other characters, he repeats opinions from How to Argue, for example, "[t]he art of arguing is the art of living," and one must respect one's uniqueness and identity and that of others. Who am I--or we? This conflict develops the characterization of his characters, usually psychologically credible.

In comparison, Dershowitz in Just Revenge focuses on the heart of justice with the worst-case scenario: genocide during the Holocaust in which the protagonist's families die. Justice-retribution/revenge-humanity--where...