Vol. 32, No. 6, 3. BOOK REVIEW: The Criminal Justice Club: A Career Prosecutor Takes on the Media - and More.

• Author: By Becket Hinckley

Wyoming Bar Journal

2009.

Vol. 32, No. 6, 3.

BOOK REVIEW: The Criminal Justice Club: A Career Prosecutor Takes on the Media - and More

Wyoming LawyerIssue: December, 2009BOOK REVIEW: The Criminal Justice Club: A Career Prosecutor Takes on the Media - and MoreBy Becket Hinckley"[A Prosecutor] is the representative not of an ordinary party to a controversy, but of a sovereignty whose obligation to govern impartially is as compelling as its obligation to govern at all; and whose interest, therefore, in a criminal prosecution is not that it shall win a case, but that justice shall be done. As such, he is in a peculiar and very definite sense the servant of the law, the twofold aim of which is that guilt shall not escape or innocence suffer. He may prosecute with earnestness and vigor - indeed, he should do so. But, while he may strike hard blows, he is not at liberty to strike foul ones. It is as much his duty to refrain from improper methods calculated to produce a wrongful conviction as it is to use every legitimate means to bring about a just one." Berger v. United States, 295 U.S. 78, 88 (1935) (bracketed material added)

Strap on your helmet! Buckle up! Brace yourself for a collision with reality like you have never experienced before with the complicated, confusing, and sometimes confounding criminal justice system.(fn1) Walt Lewis puts the criminal justice system on trial and takes dead aim at the media for sometimes subtly and sometimes flagrantly misleading the public about the criminal justice system.

Walt Lewis started as a young ACLU liberal(fn2) who dropped out of high school believing the often biased mainstream media and always sympathizing with the criminal. He transformed, slowly, and as he admits at times uncomfortably, as his media-created myths gave way to reality in light of his experiences into a life-long career (32 years) prosecutor. Mr. Lewis is now a staunch advocate for crime victims and longer sentences for violent and career criminals. This book is a story about his life as a prosecutor and it is a candid look into the belly of the criminal justice beast.

Mr. Lewis ably takes the reader through his many courtroom experiences and prosecutorial "war stories" by revealing startling facts about the criminal justice system, facts that are unknown to most of the public. Examples include:

How more people...