Uncovers a major deficiency of U.S. criminal justice--a trial system
that prioritizes winning over truth
Reginald Denny. O. J. Simpson. Colin Ferguson. Louise Woodward: all
names that have cast a spotlight on the deficiencies of the American
system of criminal justice. Yet, in the wake of each trial that exposes
shocking behavior by trial participants or results in counterintuitive
rulings--often with perverse results--the American public is reassured
by the trial bar that the case is not typical and that our trial system
remains the best in the world.
William T. Pizzi here argues that what the public perceives is in fact
exactly what the United States has: a trial system that places far too
much emphasis on winning and not nearly enough on truth, one in which
the abilities of a lawyer or the composition of a jury may be far more
important to the outcome of a case than any evidence.
How has a system on which Americans have lavished enormous amounts of
energy, time, and money been allowed to degenerate into one so
profoundly flawed?
Acting as an informal tour guide, and bringing to bear his experiences
as both insider and outsider, prosecutor and academic, Pizzi here
exposes the structural faultlines of our trial system and its paralyzing
obsession with procedure, specifically the ways in which lawyers are
permitted to dominate trials, the system's preference for weak judges,
and the absurdities of plea bargaining. By comparing and contrasting the
U.S. system with that of a host of other countries, Trials Without
Truth provides a clear-headed, wide-ranging critique of what ails the
criminal justice system--and a prescription for how it can be fixed.
