Rights at Risk

by Shipler, David K.

• ISBN13: 9780307594860
• ISBN10: 0307594866
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2012-03-06
• Publisher: Knopf

Summary

From the best-selling author of The Working Poor,a powerfully enlightening new book: an exhaustively researched examination of everyday violations of law, justice, individual rights, and civil liberties before and since 9/11. Rights at Riskshows us the "other America," a shadow world where the civil liberties we rightly take for granted have been compromised, and summons us to reclaim them. David Shipler shows us victims of torture and coercion--from suspected terrorists to a teenager in Oakland--whose confessions (sometimes false) under extreme duress are used against them in court. We see a poverty-stricken woman, forced to share an attorney with her drug dealer boyfriend and sentenced to life in prison when the conflict of interest turns her lawyer against her. And we see an Iraqi refugee, arrested and sent to court for immigration violations only to have his case dismissed when research reveals that the charge against him was utterly inapplicable. Often shocking, yet ultimately hopeful, Rights at Riskis an essential assessment of America's legal system from one of our most thoughtful writers.

Table of Contents

The Bill of Rights	p. xi
Preface	p. xiii
introduction: The Insolence of Office	p. 3
Torture and Torment	p. 14
Body and Mind	p. 14
Chicago	p. 19
Humane Torture by the CIA	p. 24
The Right to Silence	p. 33
Confession Abroad, Trial at Home	p. 40
Confessing Falsely	p. 53
Between Truth and Illusion	p. 53
The Central Park Jogger	p. 60
Human Lie Detectors	p. 62
The Law Slips Backward	p. 71
Manipulating Miranda	p. 73
Remedies	p. 76
The Assistance of Counsel	p. 80
Proving Innocence	p. 80
Location, Location, and Location	p. 87
Conflicts of Interest	p. 91
Mitigating Evidence	p. 97
Without Representation	p. 100
The Tilted Playing Field	p. 106
The Power of the Prosecutor	p. 106
The Plea Bargain	p. 114
The Sentence	p. 117
Revoking Probation and Forfeiting Assets	p. 126
Below the Law	p. 141
The Trapdoor	p. 141
Narrow Escapes	p. 153
Orphaned	p. 158
The Ashcroft Sweeps	p. 168
Unintended Consequences	p. 177
The Pursuit of Happiness	p. 181
Silence and Its Opposite	p. 187
Mightier Than the Sword	p. 187
Simply Out of Fear	p. 193
Symbolic Speech	p. 198
Small Violations of Large Principles	p. 209
Punishing Without Prosecuting	p. 214
A Redress of Grievances	p. 221
Decorum and Dissent	p. 221
Police Surveillance	p. 227
Spies in New York	p. 236
Zoning Out Free Speech	p. 242
When Rights Clash	p. 249
Inside the Schoolhouse Gate	p. 259
Tinker's Armband	p. 259
Tolerating Intolerance	p. 271
Erosion	p. 278
Professors and Their Discontents	p. 292
Security and Insecurity	p. 297
Beyond the Gate	p. 302
Epilogue: The Constitutional Culture	p. 305
Notes	p. 313
index	p. 363
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