Down and Dirty Justice

October 20, 2003
Exemplifying how the demands of marketing can triumph over the dictates of accuracy, this modest and evenhanded look at our troubled justice system is far from the terrifying journey the subtitle suggests. When Lowenthal, a law professor at Arizona State University, descends from the lofty heights of academe to grind out a nine-month sabbatical in the trenches of Maricopa County's courtrooms, he discovers only the prosaic reality of an understaffed and underpaid municipal court struggling to work through its ever-mounting case loads. As a volunteer county prosecutor, Lowenthal witnesses a beleaguered bureaucracy where defense lawyers, prosecutors, defendants, victims and judges alike are helplessly entangled in irrational legalities and rigid policies, and where fatigue, animosity and the "conservation of judicial resources" often tip the scales of justice. Yet this account is more a critical evaluation than shocking exposé. Most of the book follows the author's most significant felony case, Shilling
v. Arizona
, in which Steve Schilling, a biker and junk dealer, was accused of kidnapping and torturing a friend who he believed had filched his collection of rare coins. After three years of trial postponements, Schilling is eventually convicted, but Lowenthal's victory is diminished when he reflects on the sloppiness and carelessness of the proceedings. Part memoir, part journalism and part appeal for reform, this sensible, well-written book is a fine introduction to the challenges facing our justice system today.

February 1, 2004
In this compelling study, Lowenthal (law, Arizona State Univ.) offers an account of nine-month sabbatical spent as a state criminal prosecutor in Phoenix in 1997. After describing changes in criminal law from the 1960s to the present, Lowenthal employs a novelistic approach to describe a kidnapping and assault case that he tried as a prosecutor. The narrative begins with the thoughts of the victim and then the defendant, from the crime to the trial. When the trial commences, the author recounts his own experiences and cites the trial transcript. A book like this would surely benefit from newspaper accounts, police reports, and trial testimony to help support the author's argument. Instead, Lowenthal takes the reader into the defendant's jail cell and describes his visits to his lawyers' offices without attributing his sources. The book is replete with criticisms of the police and prosecutors in their sloppy rush to justice and concern with statistics. However, it is questionable whether nine months' work is enough to give the author the experience to address the current state of the American criminal justice system. He makes valid points about mandatory sentencing laws, plea bargaining, and faulty investigations, but when all is said and done, the book offers no real solutions.-Harry Charles, St. Louis

Copyright 2004 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 15, 2003
In the best tradition of investigative journalism, Lowenthal abandons the cushy life of a law professor to discover firsthand how today's urban criminal court system works. Unlike many law professors who have never practiced law, Lowenthal served as a public defender before teaching for the past 25 years. A desire to reexperience law "in the trenches" led Lowenthal to a nine-month sabbatical to work in the Maricopa County, Arizona, Attorney's Office, a court system with an extremely diverse caseload. The result, based on Lowenthal's absurdly brief training session, police ride-alongs, and overwhelming caseload, is a thorough indictment of a system far too hurried and slapdash to give the accused anything like fair treatment. The narrative moves between Lowenthal's experiences and the unfolding of a major kidnap-assault case on which he worked. Although the text is sometimes overly technical, Lowenthal offers a compelling, almost Dickensian depiction of a malfunctioning legal system.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2003, American Library Association.)