"This case has everything," declared the prosecutor. "It has money, sex, drugs; it has Newport, New York and Europe; it has nobility; it has maids, butlers, a gardener. Clarendon Court [the mansion where the critical events took place] has a big gate. Most people can't see inside." The trial of […]
Civil liberties attorney Harvey Silverglate makes the compelling case in Three Felonies A Day that federal prosecutors are abusing their power by using the criminal law to prosecute law-abiding citizens. Silverglate believes that we are in danger of becoming a society in which prosecutors alone become judges, juries and executioners […]
In The Invisible Hand and Popular Culture, Paul Cantor explores the ways in which television shows such as Star Trek, The X-Files, South Park, and Deadwood and films such as The Aviator and Mars Attacks! have portrayed both top-down and bottom-up models of order. Drawing on the works of […]
The Prophet Matthias came forth to establish God's kingdom on earth, and this grandiose kingdom would settle in various New York sites. Its theology was a mixture of Biblical and philosophical clichés, but cults like Matthias' don't generally attract followers based on theology but rather through the charisma of the leader. This was not the first—nor would it […]
This book recounts the notorious Spanish trial and execution of Francisco Ferrer. Ferrer was a hapless freethinker, anticleric, and poverty-stricken reformer of education. In 1909 the Spanish authorities convicted and executed Ferrer on charges of being the “author and chief” of a violent rebellion. The evidence against him was lacking, […]
Thomas Jefferson’s teacher and mentor, George Wythe, died in 1806. Wythe was one of our nation’s founding fathers, having signed the Declaration of Independence and having been instrumental—as a lawyer, law professor and judge—in bringing the rule of law to the new republic. His students included Chief Justice John Marshall, […]
