The Devil's Advocates: Greatest Closing Arguments in Criminal Law

by Michael S. Lief, H. Mitchell Caldwell

Overview

From the authors of the acclaimed Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury, and featuring some of the most important cases in criminal law, The Devil's Advocates is the final volume of a must-have trilogy of the best closing arguments in American legal history.

Criminal law is considered by many to be the most exciting of the legal specialties, and here the authors turn to the type of dramatic crimes and trials that have so captivated the public -- becoming fodder for countless television shows and legal thrillers. But the eight cases in this collection have also set historical precedents and illuminated underlying principles of the American criminal justice system.

Future president John Adams makes clear that even the most despised and vilified criminal is entitled to a legal defense in the argument he delivers on behalf of the British soldiers who shot and killed five Americans during the Boston Massacre.

The always-controversial temporary-insanity defense makes its debut within sight of the White House when, in front of horrified onlookers, a prominent congressman guns down the district attorney over an extramarital affair.

Clarence Darrow provides a ringing defense of a black family charged with using deadly force to defend themselves from a violent mob -- an argument that refines the concept of self-defense and its applicability to all races.

The treason trial of Aaron Burr, accused of plotting to "steal" the western territories of the United States and form a new country with himself as its head, offers a fascinating glimpse into a rare type of prosecution, as well as a look at one of the most interesting traitors in the nation's history.

Perhaps the best-known case in the book is that of Ernesto Miranda, the accused rapist whose trial led to the Supreme Court decision requiring police to advise suspects of their rights to remain silent and to have an attorney present -- their Miranda rights.

Each of the eight cases presented here is given legal and cultural context, including a brief historical introduction, a biographical sketch of the attorneys involved, highlights of trial testimony, analysis of the closing arguments, and a summary of the trial's impact on its participants and our country. In clear, jargon-free prose, Michael S Lief and H. Mitchell Caldwell make these pivotal cases come to vibrant life for every reader.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781416571865
Publisher:	Simon & Schuster
Publication date:	02/13/2024
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	452
Sales rank:	568,027
File size:	828 KB

About the Author

Michael S Lief is a senior deputy district attorney in Ventura, California. A former newspaper editor, he was a submarine driver for the U. S. Navy during the Cold War.

Read an Excerpt

Introduction

Closing Argument Chronicles

In book one of our series, Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury, we focused on compelling trials that featured the greatest closing arguments in American history: Clarence Darrow saving the lives of Leopold and Loeb, Gerry Spence bringing the nuclear power industry to its knees, William Kunstler taking on the Establishment. We also featured the successful prosecutions by Robert Jackson of the Nazi hierarchy, Vincent Bugliosi of Charles Manson, and Aubrey Daniel for the My Lai massacre.

Book two, And the Walls Came Tumbling Down, concentrated on landmark trials and their culminating arguments that redefined civil rights in America and profoundly affected the lives of all Americans: from the Amistad case, in which John Quincy Adams brought the injustice of slavery to the center stage of American politics, to the prosecution of Susan B. Anthony, which paved the way to success for women's suffrage, to the Larry Flynt trial, in which the porn king became the unlikely champion for free speech. In this book we also included the trial brought by Karen Ann Quinlan's family asking the court to let their hopelessly comatose daughter die, and the McCarthy-era blacklist case in which master lawyer Louis Nizer whipped the forces of innuendos and lies.

And now in book three, The Devil's Advocates: Greatest Closing Arguments in Criminal Law, we turn our attention solely to crimes. There's something intriguing about real crimes, real killers and madmen and traitors, not just the celluloid creations of the Hollywood dream machine.

It is that intrigue that led us to write this book. As in our previous efforts, we are motivated by the belief that there truly is a best seat in the house to understand terrible crimes: it's in the jury box. Victims may have understood why they were suffering so at the hands of others, but they rarely receive the opportunity to enlighten us. Killers and madmen may understand their motivation, but they often have strong incentives to lie to us. Eyewitnesses may present us with a thread of the tapestry, but not enough to give us a clear view of the whole.

But jurors! Jurors are presented with the most complete retelling, through the presentation of days, weeks, even months of testimony and evidence. And, at the end of the process, the lawyers present their arguments, summing up all that has gone before, weaving together each testimonial thread, combining the warp and woof of eyewitnesses and experts until -- violÀ! -- the advocates step back and allow the tapestry to tell the story and persuade the captive audience. However, the audience has a far more active part to play than those seeing a theatrical production, for they will determine the outcome: Freedom or captivity? Life or death?

The Devil's Advocates focuses attention on the types of crimes and trials that have so captivated the public, cases that have also helped to illuminate underlying principles of the American criminal justice system.

The United States of America is largely defined by how we treat those accused of criminal acts. Owing in large part to our English commonlaw traditions, America has continued to define and refine a system that presumes innocence until and if the state can establish beyond any reasonable doubt a person's guilt. And along the path beginning even before the birth of this nation, lawyers, judges, and legislators, as well as circumstances, have worked to hone America's justice system. In this collection we have compiled eight remarkable, landmark cases, each of which either identified a protection or better focused a right that we as Americans have all come to expect.

We begin with the right to sanctuary. That is the guarantee that once an accused is taken into custody he or she will be safely sheltered from outside forces. Such guarantees are often hard-earned, as when a Tennessee sheriff turned a blind eye to a mob hell-bent on wrenching a man from jail and lynching him.

We then turn to the Fourth Amendment guarantee to be free from unreasonable search and seizure. While the Founding Fathers contemplated such protection, it went largely vacuous until in the late 1950s, when a single mother protested a warrantless search of her home. From such modest beginnings emerged the backbone of the American criminal justice system, the exclusionary rule, which excludes illegally seized evidence from trial.

Five years after establishing the exclusionary rule, the Supreme Court, frustrated at continued police violation of a suspect's right to counsel and right to be free from self-incrimination, constructed the Miranda standard, which mandated that the police inform suspects of basic rights prior to interrogation.

There is also a basic right to be left alone, to live an unconventional life, even a strange life, free from the scrutiny of the state. That right was dramatically illustrated when self-willed outsider Randy Weaver was targeted by government agents, who would eventually shoot and kill his wife and son.

Also depicted is the most basic of rights, the right to a lawyer, a zealous advocate to represent even the despised and the vilified. It was for John Adams, who would later become the second president of the United States, to inaugurate a tradition that everyone, including the British redcoats involved in the Boston Massacre, must be represented. It remains one of history's great ironies that Adams, a leading voice for America's independence from England, would risk his life and imperil his professional career as well as political future by defending the British soldiers who had shot and killed five American patriots.

No book on memorable and significant criminal trials would be complete without including Clarence Darrow. And in 1925, the great American lawyer represented an African-American family who had the temerity to defend themselves in their home from a mob intent on running them out or worse. Darrow, as only he was capable, honed and refined the concept of self-defense.

American criminal justice was also refined on the eve of the Civil War when Congressman Daniel E. Sickles, laboring under a severe emotional strain, shot and killed the son of Francis Scott Key on a crowded, sunny Sunday afternoon in Washington, D.C.'s Lafayette Square, resulting in the concept of temporary insanity as a defense in criminal trials.

We end with the treason trial of Aaron Burr. One of the most controversial and larger-than-life figures in all of American history, Burr was accused of plotting to break away the Western territories of the United States and to form a new country with himself as its head. Burr's trial forced the justice system to fashion the vague constitutional guidelines outlawing treason into workable standards for all such trials to follow.

These arguments -- and the cases motivating them -- provide the reader with a ringside seat to real-life passion and drama, as well as to the shaping of the modern legal system we alternately praise and curse today.

Copyright © 2006 by Michael S Lief and H. Mitchell Caldwell

Editorial Reviews

If people were angels, a lot of us would be out of work, especially lawyers. In the last entry in their "Closing Arguments" series (e.g., And the Walls Came Tumbling Down: Greatest Closing Arguments Protecting Civil Liberties), California lawyers Leif (deputy district attorney, Ventura, CA) and Caldwell (Pepperdine Univ. Sch. of Law) offer a love letter to the American courts. Broader than its subtitle, this new work focuses on eight cases where justice was ultimately served. Some of the cases are famous (the Boston Massacre soldiers, defended by John Adams), some are infamous (Randy Weaver, defended by Gerry Spence), and some are obscure (Ed Johnson, a black man lynched after his conviction for raping a white woman in 1906 Chattanooga), but all are revealing page-turners. How many readers know anything about Ernesto Miranda, whose namesake warning is a staple of prime-time cop and legal shows? Who knew that the exclusionary rule-illegally obtained evidence can't be used in court-arose from an investigation in Cleveland of someone's blowing up boxing promoter Don King's porch? Although of limited value to academic libraries, owing to the absence of notes or a bibliography, this is a readable and fascinating book that's recommended for all public libraries.-Michael O. Eshleman, Kings Mills, OH Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

The authors bill this book as the greatest closing arguments in criminal law, but, happily, it also includes the stories behind them. The work reads more like a series of great short stories rather than a compilation of arguments in criminal cases decided by the Supreme Court. The authors have performed extensive research into the material and have written a surprisingly readable book. The use of an ensemble works well, giving listeners a sense of the parties and their attorneys. The narrators themselves, Gabrielle de Cuir, Stephen Hoye, Stefan Rudnicki, and Mirron Willis, are excellent. They work well together and seem to relish the passion that transforms mundane cases into Supreme Court rulings. D.J.S. © AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine

JUN/JUL 07 - AudioFile