Contempt of Court A Scholar's Battle for Free Speech from Behind Bars

by Scarce, Rik; Adler, Patricia A.; Adler, Peter

• ISBN13: 9780759106437
• ISBN10: 0759106436
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-06-16
• Publisher: AltaMira Press

Summary

In 1993 Rik Scarce was imprisoned for contempt of court in Spokane, Washington. For five months he refused to testify to a federal grand jury about his interviews with animal rights activists after they had broken into a research laboratory, and his story made headlines in numerous newspapers. Now Scarce tells of his jailing and the rationale behind his ethical stance, bringing an ethnographer's trained sensibility and a journalist's storytelling skill to his tale. Viewed as an outsider even by his fellow inmates, Scarce gained from his imprisonment a painful, rare glimpse of the jail world. This text raises serious questions about the failures of the American justice system and protection of civil liberties, and is a valuable resource for criminologists, sociologists, and corrections professionals. Book jacket.

Author Biography

Rik Scarce is professor in the Department of Sociology at Skidmore College, and previously taught at Michigan State University and Montana State University

Table of Contents

Foreword: Fighting the Good Fight
Patricia A. Adler and Peter Adler	ix
Acknowledgments	xv
Cast of Characters and Glossary	xix
1 A Sense of Justice	1	(22)
2 Kicking Uncle Sam's Ass	23	(50)
3 Find Me Some Amendments	73	(48)
4 The Meaning of Devotion	121	(30)
5 I'd Gladly Die Right Now	151	(24)
6 Joint Joints	175	(20)
7 A Final Rollup	195	(8)
8 Some Things Do Not Come to Pass	203	(14)
Notes	217	(4)
Credits	221	(2)
About the Author	223