Book Description
Howard Zinn takes us back to a newly industrialized America, the time of robber barons, tenements bursting with immigrants, and dramatic labor struggles. Zinn's colorful cast includes Vanderbilt and Carnegie, the young J. Edgar Hoover, and George Bernard Shaw, Ben Reitman, the king of the hobos; Sacco and Vanzetti, whose arrest and execution produced storms of protest around the world, and Emma Goldman, feminist, anarchist, propagandist extraordinaire.
Customer Reviews:
Radical History you can Hear.......2001-10-25
Two disks. One dedicated to telling Emma Goldman's life story, the other to the case of Sacco & Vanzetti. It's impossible to do justice to either in the space of a single, spoken-word CD, but Howard Zinn tells us enough to make it worthwhile.
These are the stories they didn't tell you in American History classes. The abuse of political activists has a long history in this country, and Zinn drives home two instances of it. If you've already read Living my Life and Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist, the Emma Goldman disk will give you little new information, but it's still fun to listen to. I hadn't read much about Sacco & Vanzetti before, but I found way too many parallels between their case and political prisoners like Mumia abu Jamal and Leonard Peltier.
Zinn is not the most dynamic speaker, but these two lectures won't put you to sleep. Well worth the time & money. I'm going to tape them so I can listen when the freeway gets clogged up.
(If you'd like to discuss this CD or review further, click on the "about me" link above & drop me an email. Thanks!)
Customer Reviews:
Polenberg of Cornell.......2001-07-17
Polenberg of Cornell University The introduction to The Letters of Sacco and Vanzetti (Penguin Books 1997) by Professor Richard Polenberg is richly informative. The publication is timely and useful. Readers must ask whether these letters offer a clue to the moral character of convicted murderers Sacco and Vanzetti. John Nicholas Beffel, radical journalist who roomed with chief defense counsel Fred Moore during the Dedham trial, declared in “The New Republic,” December 29, 1920, that Vanzetti was a “philosophical anarchist.” In “The Case of Sacco and Vanzetti” (March 1927), Harvard Law School Professor Felix Frankfurter called Vanzetti “a dreamy fish peddler” (p. 101). Bruce Bliven, “managing editor of the liberal New Republic” (a phrase from American National Biography), wrote of Sacco and Vanzetti: “Their faith is philosophical anarchism.” See TNR: June 22, 1927, p. 121. When an unknown reviewer in the April 1929 issue of the anarchist journal “The Road to Freedom” argued that Upton Sinclair’s novel “Boston” was the work of an unfit historian, Sinclair replied angrily in the June issue: “It is a fact that Sacco was a ‘Militant Anarchist.’” Anarchist editor Hippolyte Havel agreed. In the August 1929 issue of “Lantern” Walter Lippmann wrote: “By every test that I know of for judging character, these are the letters [The Letters of Sacco and Vanzetti] of innocent men.” Note: The brackets are by Lippmann Frederick Allen (Only Yesterday, 1931) said Vanzetti was “clearly a remarkable man--an intellectual of noble character, a philosophical anarchist of a type which it seemed impossible to associate with a pay-roll murder.” Alfred Jules Ayer, Professor of Logic at Oxford, reviewing Francis Russell’s 1962 book on Sacco and Vanzetti, wrote: “Both men were active anarchists of an idealistic kind.” Ayer said the letters of Vanzetti revealed “a man of great swetnesss and nobility of character.” See New Statesman: 5 July 1963. Sacco-Vanzetti scholars who met at the Boston Public Library on October 26 and 27, 1979, reminded readers that time is a great corrective. Professor Nunzio Pernicone, on the second conference day said: “ . . . these men [Sacco and Vanzetti] were not philosophical anarchists; they were genuine, militant revolutionaries.” See “Sacco-Vanzetti: Developments and Reconsiderations--1979,” the 1982 publication by Trustees of the Public Library of the City of Boston. In “Sacco and Vanzetti: The Anarchist Background,” a 1991 publication by Princeton University Press, Professor Paul Avrich wrote: “Both [Sacco and Vanzetti] were ultra-militants, . . .” See p. 161 for Avrich’s citation to Sinclair’s letters that acknowledge the militancy of Sacco and Vanzetti. On page xxxix of his Introduction, Polenberg calls Edmund M. Morgan a historian. In fact, Morgan is called Royall Professor of Law at Harvard University on the back cover of the 1978 reprint of “The Legacy of Sacco and Vanzetti,” that 1948 book by Joughin and Morgan that Tom O’Connorr said had educated a generation of college students and professors. Polenberg’s assertion (p. xxxix) that Joughin and Morgan, . . .believed Sacco and Vanzetti innocent, . . .” must be severely qualified. Morgan said Ehrmann’s book, “The Untried Case: The Sacco-Vanzetti Case and the Morelli Gang,” failed to convince him that the Morelli gang, not Sacco and Vanzetti, had committed the crime at South Braintree. Morgan also said that if Sacco and Vanzetti “were alive today [1934] and were to be tried again, . . . and if a verdict were returned, it could not be set aside as contrary to the weight of evidence, at least against Sacco.” See Harvard Law Review, January 1934. Morgan has more telling concessions in the book he and Joughin published in 1948. On pp. 55-56 he calls Vanzetti’s Plymouth trial fair, the verdict just. On p. 46 Morgan writes: “ . . . this cross-examination, taken alone,
tends strongly to show that a group of Italians had framed an alibi for Vanzetti and had coached this bright youngster [Beltrado Brini] to tell his story with details which would tie in with the incidents related by other witnesses.” On pages 48-49 Morgan says Vanzetti’s statements on the Plymouth trial are suspect. A handbook on the two disputed trials is “Kill Now, Talk Forever: Debating Sacco and Vanzetti,” an ebook by 1stBooks Library. Soft cover issue will be available before the end of summer....
Remarkable and Moving.......1997-12-06
This is the most important testament to a now largely forgotten tragedy of American politics. Sacco and Vanzetti were essentially convicted and executed for being unpatriotic foreigners, regardless of the crime they were accused of [for which no specific evidence was presented against them]. They waited for seven years in prison before their execution, during which time they wrote these letters. Their English, though it improved through the years, was never fully accomplished. But the results are extraordinary. The letters express ideas about life, society, faith, politics and human feelings, and the often clumsy and misused language actually makes the expression more lucid and more beautiful. The path of trial, appeal and final sentencing runs through clearly, and as the end approaches the letters are inexpressibly heartbreaking, as when Sacco asks his wife to tell his daughter "that I love her so much, and again, so much." This book has been in and out of print since the late 1920's, and is often unavailable in libraries because patrons steal it. It is a blessing that Penguin has brought it back.
Book Description
In 1920 Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, two Italian immigrants and devout anarchists, were accused of robbery and murder. Their subsequent trial and execution captivated the world and exposed many of the cultural and political tensions of 1920s America. Sacco and Vanzetti’s supporters claimed the two anarchists had been persecuted for their beliefs and not their actions, while their detractors saw proof of the country’s ability to protect itself from dangerous foreign elements. Michael Topp’s unique collection of documents examines both sides and provides a clear presentation of the trial while emphasizing the broad historical context in which it was conducted. An interpretive introductory essay, document headnotes, a chronology, and questions for consideration provide further pedagogical support. A bibliographic essay and a brief discussion of artistic productions based on the trial are also included.
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- ....this book also cures cancer.
- Convincing examination
- Inconvenient Truths
- inference upon inference
- Convincing account from a former "true believer."
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Sacco & Vanzetti: The Case Resolved
Francis Russell
Manufacturer: Harpercollins
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The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression
ASIN: 0060155248 |
Customer Reviews:
....this book also cures cancer........2007-09-29
I have no idea about exactly what happened in South Braintree in 1920, and neither apparently does anyone else. People's interpretations of the evidence seems to divide along political lines.
However, Mr. Russell's man-crushes on Katzmann and other figures in the case are useless as evidence. "No one could imagine the prosecutor sending innocent men to their deaths" is absolutely meaningless drivel. And whatever ballistics evidence Russell feels can be had from firing old bullets from an old gun still does not prove who fired that gun on the day of the crime.
The jury will always be out on this case. Whatever merits or demerits Mr. Russell's book has, it does nothing to resolve the case, or remove the fact that guilty or innocent, Sacco & Vanzetti did not get a fair and honest trial.
Convincing examination.......2007-04-04
A convincing examination of the Sacco-Vanzetti case which argues that Sacco was guilty of murder and Vanzetti of being an accessory after the fact. Even defenders of the radicals will have to answer this evidence. Nevertheless, subtitling the book "The Case Resolved" goes too far. The story does have to be told as part of Russell's own search for the truth, but Russell (1910-1989) pushes his own intellectual martyrdom too far to the foreground, especially at the conclusion of Chapter 14. Nonetheless, this is a satisfying book, thoughtful, lucid, and written with an absolute minimum of academic posturing.
Inconvenient Truths.......2005-12-29
Back in 1920, five men pulled a payroll robbery in South Braintree, Massachussetts. Two men were later arrested, and tried for the crime, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti. In 1921, the two were convicted and sentenced to death, in 1927 they were executed.
In the six years between conviction and execution, there was a long campaign aimed at convincing people that Sacco and Vanzetti were innocent men, deliberately framed by the prosecutors because of their political convictions.
Francis Russell once believed that. Then, while serving on jury duty in the late 1950s, he watched the former prosecutor in action in a civil case, and became convinced that this man couldn't have deliberately sent two innocent men to their death. But of course, they were innocent. Therefore, the prosecution must have been sincere, but wrong, in believing they were guilty.
Russell wrote an article on these lines for American Heritage magazine, and then got a contract to do a whole book on the subject, Tragedy in Dedham, which is out of print. Since his article had shown he didn't believe the cops and district attorney were murderers, he got a lot of cooperation. He reviewed the evidence thoroughly, and in doing so, it occurred to him that there were new forensics tests available that might settle some long disputed questions.
The tests were performed, and what do you know? They showed that Sacco was guilty, though Vanzetti may have been innocent. Russell so wrote in Tragedy in Dedham.
But the people who insisted on Sacco's and Vanzetti's innocence weren't interested in facts, and still aren't. They start out with the proclamation that S. & V. were innoncent, then come up with reasons to dismiss the evidence in the case that goes against their line. It's all a vast conspiracy, a conspiracy so immense as to dwarf any previous such venture in the history of man, as Sen. Joe McCarthy said. Not only was the evidence introduced at the trial faked, but evidence that no one would think to test for nearly forty years was faked too, just in case. With such reasoning, one can "prove" anything.
In Sacco & Vanzetti: The Case Resolved, Russell follows up his first book, showing how the politics of the case has always been more important than the truth, and how the Sacco & Vanzetti partisans have used the case for their political goals. For those interested in the truth, this book will be immensely interesting. Among the most interesting facts new facts Russell uncovered for this volume is that many of the S. & V. defenders believed them to be guilty. Another is that many 'defenders' were quite happy to see the two executed. Martyrs were better for the cause than live prisoners.
Sacco was guilty. Vanzetti may have been innocent. No one was framed. People who want to attack "the system" frequently lie about this case. People interested in what happened will find this book a good place to start.
inference upon inference.......2001-06-16
This is by far the worst "scholarly" work I've ever read. I never would have finished if I wasn't being paid to read it. Here's why: 1) All sources with allegedly commumnist affiliations are dismissed as un-believable. 2) Although he Russell claims to have read the trial transcript and he concludes that it supports his conclusions, he only quotes the jury instructions in support of his conclusions. 3) He discounts the 21 witnesses for the defence as members of a catholic/Italian conspiracy and therefore they are not credible. 4) Russell has footnotes but they are limited to newspaper headlines and other books. Russell makes many conclusions based on works he does not give citations to. 5) He concludes that Sacco's son's silence is proof of his father's innocense. When, Dante finally spoke out most eloquently in his fathers defense, Russell discounts Dante's words as "too eloquent" to have been written by Dante and therefore Dante is not credible. 6) Russell relies on evidence of people who made claims but those people all died before they could be cross examined or even double-checked. 7) Russell is inconsistent in presenting what evidence he has bothered to present. Russell relies on a letter (he claims he has) implicating Sacco, but also the letter states that the DA at the time was willing to ensure exile for S&V for $35,000; two pages latter Russell is lauding the DA for his moral standing and saying he never offered to let S&V go for a bribe. 8) Finally, Russell relies on balistic tests on Sacco's gun which had been tampered with and which had been in the Judge's possession for years after the trial.
In conclusion, the balistic evidence does give some food for thought. But the circumstances surrounding Sacco's gun are too strange for such balistic evidence to be considered as the slam-dunk of evidence in this case. For a better presentation of the balistic evidence watch the documentary on S&V's balistic evidence. Russell refers to the documentary in the book, but he doesn't give a footnote for it; I assume it was PBS, probably NOVA.
For a more objective presentation of the evidence read any encyclopedic entry.
Convincing account from a former "true believer.".......1999-09-03
This is the only book I have read on this subject. It has been an article of faith of the political Left that Sacco and Vanzetti were framed, or, at least, that the law was determined to find them guilty, no matter what. Russell grew up in such a family, and never questioned this conclusion until he was well into writing a book which he hoped would conclusively prove their innocence. He concluded that Sacco, at least, was certainly guilty, although it is entirely possible that Vanzetti wasn't involved at all. A must read for anyone interested in this subject.
Customer Reviews:
Baffling, at first .......2006-10-14
Two or three chapters into this novel an unaccustomed question occurred: why, exactly, had the author written it? This was a question usually put to rest, when the answer wasn't self-evident, after a few pages of a book. But in this case, I remained puzzled why Binelli had conflated anarchists and vaudevillians. Why give them movie careers? Why bother to give them so un-funny a premise as a knife-throwing act? Binelli's wit and cool precision weren't in keeping with inventions of extravagant whimsy or loopy arbitrariness; this wasn't Woody Allen. The high quality of writing kept me reading, however, and soon the raison d'etre emerged: "Sacco and Vanzetti Must Die!" is a postmodern fiction-writer's equivalent of Meditations on Being Italian-American. Hence the appearance of various stereotypes (e.g. the organ grinder, the Mafiosi) and a cast that includes Primo Carnera, Benito Mussolini and Italo Balbo, and references to other Italians and Italo-Americans from Enrico Caruso to Enrico Fermi, if memory serves. (Binelli's kin were knive-sharpeners, and no doubt other elements here are autobiographical) Once my initial perplexity was resolved, I was free to concentrate on the novel--thoroughly entertaining, imaginative, provocative (as when the real historical figures Sacco and Vanzetti are presented) and quite satisfying. I look forward to Binelli's next effort--which I somehow doubt will center on his ethnicity.
A work of considerable talent and originality.......2006-08-09
The Nic Sacco and Bart Vanzetti in Mark Binelli's novel "Sacco And Vanzetti Must Die!" are not the infamous anarchists executed for treason by the United States government, but film stars and slapstick comedians who rose to fame through a seedy New York vaudeville club, then on to Hollywood films and USO tours (where they opened with disastrous results for Bob Hope). Eventually their careers decline , slapstick becomes a kind of stand-in for anarchic freedom, the two performers begin to merge with their more infamous namesakes. An alternate history of the 20th Century, "Sacco And Vanzetti Must Die! " is a work of considerable talent and originality, documenting author Mark Binelli as a writer who has mastered wit and storytelling to produce a highly recommended, minor masterpiece of literate, thoughtful, thought-provoking, and thoroughly entertaining fiction.
Great Fun!.......2006-07-27
This book is a triumph on a number of levels.
He started to lose me toward the end, but he deals with the subject at hand with such depth that I couldn't put it down.
What do comedy and anarchy have in common? "The ability to enter a crowded pie-shop and see nothing but possibility".
Bravo Signor Binelli!
Book Description
The Sacco-Vanzetti affair is the most famous and controversial case in American legal history. It divided the nation in the 1920s, and it has continued to arouse deep emotions, giving rise to an enormous literature. Few writers, however, have consulted anarchist sources for the wealth of information available there about the movement of which the defendants were a part. Now Paul Avrich, the preeminent American scholar of anarchism, looks at the case from this new and valuable perspective. This book treats a dramatic and hitherto neglected aspect of the cause célèbre that raised, according to Edmund Wilson, "almost every fundamental question of our political and social system."
Customer Reviews:
"one cannot deal with Sacco and Vanzetti without talking about anarchism".......2007-10-13
When I was a young teenager, I first ran across the names Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti in a footnote to "Two Sonnets in Memory" by Edna St. Vincent Millay. At that age, the story of an injustice is always interesting and I was introduced to the myth of Sacco and Vanzetti. I may be careless to use the word "myth" since it is still such a loaded subject. But by using that term I do not mean any statement about their guilt or innocence-- that truth can never be fully established either way. I mean only that for many many years Sacco and Vanzetti were nothing to me except two soulful and handsome young men who were apparently executed for nothing except their political views-- about which I had no notion at all. My notion of anarchism was colored by a vague notion of Dada art and Futurism. My understanding of the political history of Italian-American anarchism in the US was entirely non-existent. The sacrificial lambs may well be one valid way of looking at the case, but it isn't the entire picture and also does not do justice to the context of the time.
I was interested in finding a book that covered what I did not already know. I knew quite about about the protests and the affect on literature and art. I had virtually no background as to what school of thought Sacco & Vanzetti belonged and I wanted to understand more about what it meant that they were anarchists-- in what context & to what ends.
The Avrich book succeeds admirably in providing the information that I had hoped to find. From their childhoods in Italy to the history of Italian anarchism in the US, Avrich paints the context around Sacco and Vanzetti and how they finally came to the place where they were when executed. It is not a lengthy book, but is dense and well-documented. It draws heavily from the Italian language resources that appear to have been ignored by many others who have written about the case.
Avrich is a dry writer-- unlikely to ever find himself a cross-over history best seller because of his sparkling prose. But the fact that the dryness bothered me surely says more about me as a lazy and erratic reader of history than it does about Avrich as a historian.
If you are looking for a personal biography of Sacco & Vanzetti, there are surely more charming narrative sources. As it is a fairly narrow political biography, I am also not sure that I would recommend it if you also are not familiar with the broad strokes of the case. There are also many other books which use the Sacco & Vanzetti case to examine US law and political culture at the time of the executions. The Avrich book is not the place to go in order to look at the case's impact on the United States.
However, if you are already familiar with the case and would like to know more, Avrich does present a perspective that many others neglect. It would also be a very interesting book if you were interested in the history of anarchism in the US. Recommended.
Just a very thorough book.......2004-03-17
Most people know nothing of why we have such prohibitive laws against the first ammendment exist now. But long before 9/11 terrorism struck the USA, another terrorist act led to many restrictions on speech and association, similar to and in some cases more restrictive than Bush's laws. This book covers in detail what is known about the surroundings of the largest previous terrorist act in the United States, also in NYC. It is highly entertaining from start to finish. You will get to know each of the terrorists and the controversial evidence for and against them. But this isn't extreme islamic interpretation terrorism, this is anarchists from europe.
The Anarchist as a Human Being.......2003-07-24
Avrich's book is extraordinary as an account of the varied principle protagonists in the Italian Anarchist circles of 80 years ago, though it provides only a historical account of the characters without a perspective of history's judgment. The only reason I give the book 4 stars instead of 5 is that Sacco and Vanzetti are almost minor characters, popping up now and then amongst Galleani, Malatesta, Buda, Salsedo, et al, though their story and their fate is symbolic of the entire movement: All were relatively ordinary people who despised governments, and in turn were wiped off the face of America by ours. Avrich gives rich detail into the lives of Sacco and Vanzetti as well as all of the other mad bombers running around New York and Boston. The story of "Ella", the dynamite courier, with a side dish of Emma Goldman sharing her prison cell for a while, is superb. If you're an Anarchist fan, or maybe even a real Anarchist, Avrich is your man for history of the movement.
As a side note, read this book on an airplane some time and see how many people sitting next to you ask you what it's about. As significant as S&V were in American 20th Century history, their names are lost now to anyone but an Anarchist or the occasional college student doing required reading.
Excellent book!.......1998-11-30
Paul Avrich has made a career out of anarchist history -- anarchistory, I suppose you'd call it. He's an excellent writer and this book is a welcome addition to his series. The title is a little misleading, as Sacco and Vanzetti, who were executed in the late 20's in one of the most controversial criminal cases of this century, aren't really dealt with too much.
What is dealt with are the Galleanists, the followers of Italian anarchist Luigi Galleani, who really framed American anti-radical policy (unintentionally) by way of a series of bombings that occurred in 1919 and 1920. These bombings offered the government the pretext for the unlawful series of police actions called the "Red Scare". These events are important even today because they framed American policy toward domestic leftist radicalism, much of which remains in force today.
The book follows the lives (and deaths) of many Italian anarchists, including Galleani himself, and is a fascinating exploration of their lives and their anarchist subculture at a time when anarchism was on the wane everywhere except Spain.
To the modern anarchist, the book offers as much of a sense of what anarchism shouldn't be as what it used to be. The Galleanist use of bombs did anarchism a considerable disservice as it gave the press something sensational to latch onto -- even today, some 70 years later, people still link anarchism with bombs. This is a direct offshoot of the Galleanists' activities, as explored in this book.
Avrich has a very readable writing style, and the book is jam-packed with historical references and interesting stories. Like all of his anarchist books, this one is worth your time.
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Legacy of Sacco and Vanzetti
Lewis Joughin , and
E. M. Morgan
Manufacturer: Princeton Univ Pr
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0691005885 |
Book Description
In "Famous Crimes Revisited," renowned forensic scientist, Dr. Henry Lee, and Jerry Labriola, M.D. re-examine the O.J.Simpson, Vincent Foster, JonBenet Ramsey, Lindbergh baby, Sam Sheppard, JFK, and Sacco-Vanzetti cases. Surprising questions are raised and rare photographs provided.
Customer Reviews:
Be well informed........2007-08-31
Doctor Lee brings you to and through the crime scenes so much better than a TV show.
How Past Errors Continue Today.......2007-07-28
Dr. Henry Lee is Chief Emeritus of the Connecticut State Police Forensic Science Laboratory and has extensive credentials. He investigated over 6,000 major crime cases. Dr. Jerry Labriola is an Assistant Professor at the University of Connecticut Medical School and has practiced medicine for over 30 years. He is an experienced writer. "Sam Constant" is a fictional character who expresses the sentiments of the time. The `Prologue' explains the style of writing for this book, a way to journey to past events and comment on them using the latest scientific knowledge. The authors believe the same technical and judgmental errors continue to this day (p.xiv). External factors affect the legal process. This book has no index.
Section 1 deal with the Sacco-Vanzetti case, both were executed for a robbery-murder they most likely did not commit. There was a "highly unusual" trial for a lesser crime prior to a major crime (p.33). Vanzetti was delivering fish to his customers at the time of the crime (p.41). The head of the Massachusetts State Police believed they were innocent (p.43). Boston agents of the Department of Justice believed the crime was the work of professional gangsters (p.49). There were problems with eyewitness evidence (Chapter 5). There was tampering and suppression of evidence (p.64). Chapter 6 discusses the ballistic evidence, and the lack of a chain of custody. Both the shells and bullets could have been tampered with (pp.78-79). Vanzetti's revolver was not the guard's gun, he was framed (pp.90-91). The claim of "consciousness of guilt" seems to be a euphemism for prejudice (p.91). Sacco & Vanzetti lied about their activities to hide their anarchistic beliefs. Reporters thought the trial was not fairly and impartially conducted.
Section 2 covers five famous flawed cases. Edmond Locard noted the existence of trace evidence (p.103). The footprints outside the Lindbergh home were not measured, photographed, or cast in plaster (p.113). There were no fingerprints anywhere in the nursery (p.114)! A year later some of the ransom money was traced to Bruno Hauptmann (he entered the country illegally and had a criminal record in Germany). Hauptmann's writing was similar to the writing on the ransom note, but document examiners for the Secret Service and Army say Hauptmann did not write the ransom notes (p.118). [This is not an exact science.] Dr. Lee has 24 questions about this case (pp.126-129). One question should be about the pajamas worn by the baby; whoever had them was the kidnapper. Dr. Sam Sheppard was convicted due to commercial rivalry and prejudice. Coroner Gerber was out to get "the Sheppard clan", whose suburban hospital competed with the Cleveland Hospital. Dr. Paul L. Kirk's 1954 examination of the murder scene (after the trial!) documented the facts [Paul Holmes' 1961 book].
The assassination of JFK was never solved, Oswald was neither convicted or even indicted. David Wrone's "The Zapruder Film" explains why Oswald was in the doorway when the first shot was fired, and two films from across the street show nobody at that 6th floor window. [George O'Toole's 1975 book "The Assassination Tapes" provided the evidence to reopen the investigation. The "magic bullet" was not recovered at the crime scene, but was found (or planted) at Parkland Hospital (p.152). Was Vincent Foster a suicide or murder victim? There are arguments for each theory (pp. 175-177). The Starr Report said suicide (p.165). Was JonBenet Ramsey killed by an intruder or insider? The arguments for each theory are on pages 177-178. It is still unsolved.
Section 3 discusses the O. J. Simpson trial. OJ went from a sports hero to a reviled villain in just a few weeks. Has this ever happened before? There was racial bias over the trial and verdict, the facts weren't important! Nicole Brown Simpson's 911 transcript is on pages 189-195. No one was assaulted or arrested but it made people believe OJ was guilty. [Was this tamer than some Jerry Springer shows?] The grand jury was cancelled because they refused to indict OJ for murder; then they used a preliminary hearing to indict OJ. Chapter 1 does not mention that Nicole's boyfriend was about the same size and age as Ron Goldman (mistaken identity?). Chapter 2 has discrepancies in the time line from other books. Fuhrman found a still wet glove at 6am (p.207). There were problems in falsification of a legal document, and mishandling and/or fabrication of evidence (p.211). The Fourth Amendment bans illegally obtained evidence. This safeguards people against government intrusions (pp.212-213). There were conflicts in the testimony of Vannatter and Fuhrman (p.217). The coroner said the time of death was after 11pm (p.219). Two different types of stab wounds were found. Where was the bloody clothing, shoes, and murder weapon (p.219)? Why was a bloody glove placed in the backyard?
Chapter 4 deals with the trial. Robert Shapiro assembled a "dream team" of experts for the defense (p.226). The defense said evidence that exonerated OJ had been disregarded (p.228). Evidence collection did not always follow protocol (p.229). There were problems in the evidence that suggested planting (p.230). The use of videotapes from this highly publicized case provided evidence on the procedures (p.231). Dr. Lee has 16 questions about the facts in this case (pp.238-239). [The answer to #16 may be that the Bronco was parked there after the limo drive exited.] Chapter 5 discusses the opposing viewpoints of the major evidence in this trial. There were many examples where the prosecution claims did not match what the defense experts observed (p.243). The `Epilogue' explains how public opinion (manufactured by the media) affects a trial. There was suspicion of evidence suppression, tampering with evidence, perjury, and destruction or falsification of records (p.250). While science has advanced, fallible human beings can still make errors.
The `Appendix' discusses the past, present, and future of forensic science. It provides an outline for the general reader. [The paragraph on "voice-prints" may be outdated.] The `Bibliography' contains the names of books and articles on the seven cases in this book. [It does not list James Neff's "The Wrong Man", or "Killing Time" by Donald Freed and Raymond Briggs.]
The worst forensic book I've ever read.......2004-06-29
I really enjoy reading different experts' views on famous cases, past and present. Although that is the premise of this book, I did not enjoy reading it. The first sign of trouble is the editor's note explaining the "Sam Constant." If the literary device must be explained to the reader, then it shouldn't be used. The forensic case files in the book are very thin and Dr. Lee either breezes past each one (his excuse being that he didn't need his "time machine" - he had been there for the trial in real time) or just lists questions that have already been raised for years. He offers no solutions and sometimes, he doesn't even offer theories or suspicions. The chapter about OJ takes bizarre disbelief to a new level, and when Sam Constant is mixed into this situation, chaos reigns. The Sam Constant character is really the worst part of this book. The sections featuring him are incredibly absurd, and it is truly vexing that, while Dr. Lee barely scratches the surface of the crimes, he lists in painful detail everywhere he goes, everyone he meets, what is in his room, even what he ate at meals. If Dr. Lee wanted to write a novel, that's fine, he should write a novel. This book was supposed to be about true cases, but the hapless reader(victim) is duped. Few books are written so badly that they actually make you angry, but this is one of them.
Good forensics, with a twist..........2002-11-25
A good, quick read if you are interested in forensics. Be aware there is a very different approach to this book then any other forensic book I have ever read, and I have read alot of them. Dr. Lee gives you the dynamics of each case in point. The cases are Sacco-Vanzetti (from the 1920's), the Lindbergh baby, Sam Sheppard (the story that spawned the movie "the Fugitive" and the TV series by the same name), President Kennedy, Vincent Foster, Jon Bennet Ramsey, and OJ Simpson. Here is the twist. He travels back in time to sit through these trials, not to decide if the verdict is correct, but to see how immature our justice system was (or is... Simpson trial). He shows how prejudices, crime scenes and evidence flawed the cases. He talks about conspiracies, planting incriminating evidence, bumbling crimes scenes, and more. It gets better. Not only does he travel back in time, even back just 8 years (1994 OJ Simpson), but even to trials he was present at(Again, OJ Simpson where he was hired by the defence). Which is not to say is a bad thing.. BUT, he has a buddy that he runs into when he goes back in time. This is where I was ambivilent. I could not decide if it was clever or unnecessary. This 'buddy' was Sam Constant. And although Dr. Lee was always unseen, Sam Constant could be seen to people at will. Sam represented public opinion of the times. He showed prejudices and followed medias. Whatever was the publics main thought, such was his.
The largest sections of this book was of Sacco-Vanzetti and OJ Simpson. Very small sections on the others, which was the main reson for me to get this book in the first place. It certainly was not a poor read, and Dr. Lee, who just sticks to his science and does not judge, is a very intelligent man. His insights are very interesting, which thankfully were present and made the book worth the read for me. I suppose you will have to decide for yourself.
The old shell game.......2002-07-05
Ironically, the book itself is a crime scene. The crime is grift or hustle or bunco or scam. The criminal is the authors themselves whose only idea in writing this "book" seemed to be, "I guess we ought to try and make some money again."
What's wrong with it? Apart from the things that other reviewers have noted? The crime scene analysis of Dr Lee is extremely shallow. For example, in treating the Jon-Benet Ramsey murder, Lee sees fit to limit his contribution to an outline of incicators, this after a lengthy and baffling encounter with "Sam Constant." In the outline, under the heading of indicators that the offender was a family member he lists the evidence that the lengthy and elaborate ransom note was written on note paper found in the house and that a rough draft of the note was found in a trash can in the house.
It seems to me this is enough to call into question Dr Lee's competence to make any judgements of forensic psychology. WHat he is implying is that some family member is going to go to the trouble of crafting a long and very elaborate phony kidnapping/ransom note, involving detailed phony instructions, and even the fabricated nerdy/macho persona of the writer, and then top all this effort off by selecting their own stationery to write the note and furthermore tossing off a rough draft that they throw into their own trash can. What's wrong with this premise? Some family member meticulous enough to write this phony note is also going to be meticulous enough to write it on something other than what is obviously their own paper. Of course one can then argue, "Well, maybe they deliberately wrote the phony note on their own paper because that is precisely what some family member writing a phony ransom note would not do." Well, this is extremely subtle thinking; and moreover, this is not what Lee suggests. He merely lists the fact that the note paper was from stock found in the house and adduces this as possible evidence that the note was written by a family member. None of this intricate double negative theory goes into Lee's evaluation. And again, imagine that you are going to stage the murder of a family member to look like a kidnapping. Do you then - knowing the consequences if you are caught - toss off the note on your own paper, hoping the cops fall for your devlish ploy? Do you also then leave the body in the house, after all this ransom business that you go into in loving detail? It would take an extremely sophisticated criminal to come up with this subtle scheme and a criminal of this intelligence and sophistication would not like his chances of the cops and the jury being subtle enough to see things the right way.
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Protest: Sacco-Vanzetti and the intellectuals
David Felix
Manufacturer: Indiana University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
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ASIN: B0007DMKMG |
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