Black Rage Confronts the Law
Описание книги
In 1971, Paul Harris pioneered the modern version of the black rage defense when he successfully defended a young black man charged with armed bank robbery. Dubbed one of the most novel criminal defenses in American history by Vanity Fair, the black rage defense is enormously controversial, frequently dismissed as irresponsible, nothing less than a harbinger of anarchy. Consider the firestorm of protest that resulted when the defense for Colin Ferguson, the gunman who murdered numerous passengers on a New York commuter train, claimed it was considering a black rage defense. In this thought-provoking book, Harris traces the origins of the black rage defense back through American history, recreating numerous dramatic trials along the way. For example, he recounts in vivid detail how Clarence Darrow, defense attorney in the famous Scopes Monkey trial, first introduced the notion of an environmental hardship defense in 1925 while defending a black family who shot into a drunken white mob that had encircled their home. Emphasizing that the black rage defense must be enlisted responsibly and selectively, Harris skillfully distinguishes between applying an environmental defense and simply blaming society, in the abstract, for individual crimes. If Ferguson had invoked such a defense, in Harris's words, it would have sent a superficial, wrong-headed, blame-everything-on-racism message. Careful not to succumb to easy generalizations, Harris also addresses the possibilities of a white rage defense and the more recent phenomenon of cultural defenses. He illustrates how a person's environment can, and does, affect his or her life and actions, how even the most rational person can become criminally deranged, when bludgeoned into hopelessness by exploitation, racism, and relentless poverty.
Оглавление
Paul Harris. Black Rage Confronts the Law
About NYU Press
BLACK RAGE CONFRONTS THE LAW
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1 The Black Rage Defense, 1846: The Trial of William Freeman
Chapter 2 The Black Rage Defense, 1971
Chapter 3 The Law: Its Myths and Rituals
Chapter 4 Black Rage 1971: The Case of James Johnson, Jr
Chapter 5 James Johnson’s Workers’ Compensation Case
Chapter 6 Racism, Rage, and Criminal Defenses
Chapter 7 To Use or Not to Use The Black Rage Defense
Chapter 8 Race, Class, and the Trials of Clarence Darrow
Chapter 9 A Survey of Black Rage Cases
Chapter 10 Urban War Zones
Chapter 11 White Rage—Hate Crimes
Chapter 12 White Rage—Do Prisons Cause Crime?
Chapter 13 The Cultural Defense and the Trials of Patrick Hooty Croy
Chapter 14 “Remake the World”
Notes. Notes to Chapter 1
Notes to Chapter 2
Notes to Chapter 3
Notes to Chapter 5
Notes to Chapter 6
Notes to Chapter 7
Notes to Chapter 8
Notes to Chapter 9
Notes to Chapter 10
Notes to Chapter 11
Notes to Chapter 12
Notes to Chapter 13
Notes to Chapter 14
Index
Отрывок из книги
Thank you for buying this ebook, published by NYU Press.
Sign up for our e-newsletters to receive information about forthcoming books, special discounts, and more!
.....
Van Buren was afraid that testimony linking racial oppression to mental illness might have found a sympathetic ear among some of the jurors, so he tried to scare them by implying that civilized society will be destroyed if these theories are accepted.
Doctrines have been advanced by counsel and witnesses in the course of this trial, dangerous to the peace of society and fatal to good government. The laws and institutions under which we live have been assailed. The maxims of law which have emanated from the wisest and most humane jurist that ever lived—maxims of which the security of liberty, property, and life have reposed for ages; which the successive wisdom of centuries has confirmed, and under which the safety of Prisoners, as well as of society, has been protected—are now openly derided and defied.
.....