Black's Law : A Criminal Lawyer Reveals his Defense Strategies in Four Cliffhanger Cases

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Summary: Legal Education for all
Review: A great book. Written by a expert in communication. Each case brought you into the defense, you believe in the actions brought forward to give not only a legal defense by our constitution but to see a inocent person never is incarcerated,if that ever comes to pass. I would hope Mr. Black will write more, he is able to take a very complicated subject and break it down to a laymans understanding.

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Summary: How the criminal "justice" system really works.
Review: A world class attorney, Roy Black discusses some of the injustice that is known to pervade the legal system and how he has managed to address overzealous prosecutors, and trial and appellate judges who are more concerned with politics than law and justice. Using vignettes from his trial experience, Mr. Black's discussion of trial tactics and strategy are both engaging to the average reader, and informative to the trial practitioner. The fact that the vignettes are true stories makes them even more gripping.

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Summary: Brilliant--Restores your faith in the legal profession!
Review: Black's Law is brilliantly written and thoughtfully argued. More inspiring, however, is that it reminds us that innocent people do at times get railroaded or scapegoated for political reasons or just plain bad luck. A shame that we don't all have a principled, intelligent man like Roy Black to fight for us.

It's a real treat to read something this good. Buy it now!

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Summary: Outstanding book for anyone invoved in criminal justice.
Review: For anyone who is interested in the way criminal trials really work -- not the Ally McBeal version, or the O.J. "Dream Team" version -- this is a great book. As a public defender I can tell you that Mr. Black's book is the real deal -- although he practices at a level that most of us can only aspire to. Mr. Black, like most great trial lawyers, is an excellent story-teller. The prose is simple, direct and entertaining. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

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Summary: Re: Florida cases: Roy Swafford and Peter Ventura:
Review: For those interested in reading the four to three vote Florida Supreme Court opinions regarding two more death sentenced persons whose innocence is an authentic issue, please go to www.flcourts.org, then go to "Opinions and Rules", then chose the correct year and scroll down to the following two cases:

Roy Swafford: April 18, 2002 Case No. 92.173

Peter Ventura: May 24, 2001 Case No. 93.839

These two cases are findable under "Court Orders: Case Disposition Orders" and "Briefs in Other Cases" sections of the "Press Page":

Roy Swafford: March 26, 2004 Case Nos. 03.931 and 03.1153

Rating:
Summary: The Master Barrister
Review: His skills honed in the seedy and often dangerous world of the defense of indigent clients on the wrong side of Miami, Roy Black has selected four cases from his portfolio to present to the reader in summary form. We soon see that Mr. Black is one-in-10,000 in the pursuit of his profession at the bar. We see that not only must an advocate know the law consummately, but be so facile in the world of criminal and civil procedures both in state courts and in federal, so as to anticipate and outwit both the prosecutor and the judge in the dogged defense of his client. Black's success rests in no small measure upon his consummate knowledge of human nature; he studies his clients his opponents,the witnesses, the judges and the jurypersons until he can be fairly certain of how they will respond to circumstances. He is as indefatigable in his memorization the documents of hostile witnesses as he is with case law. Each case he has chosen illustrates a different facet in the all too familiar tale of justice aborted. In the middle of racial unrest that tore Miami apart in the early 80's a police officer named Alvarez shot a black man in a crowded arcade. There were immediate riots as the populace reacted to what they saw as yet another case of police brutality. There was enormous pressure to charge Alvarez with a crime so as to avert further rioting, and state attorney general Reno called for Alvarez's head. By making sure of his jury and by calling in several experts Black demonstrated that the officer acted in self defense. He was acquitted despite the politics. The next case involves an indigent black man who undeniably had murdered innocent victims. He had been condemned to die. Black took up his appeal and showed that improper jury instructions about mitigating circumstances resulted in a wrongful sentence. The third defendant was brought to trial for murder 1. Black demonstrates that shoddy police work, perpetrated owing to jumped-conclusions based upon the location of the body, resulted in a criminal charge against a man who was involved in an accidental shooting. The last trial reveals the horrors of prosecutorial misconduct in a federal trial. In such cases the defense is not allowed discovery but only a witness list. By thorough research into the backgrounds of the witnesses against his innocent client Black discredits them as either being "bribed" by the prosecution by reduction of fines and the keeping of their ill gotten goods or caught in a web of their own making: testify and look good or recant and be tried for perjury. Again Black gets his client off, but not for long; once the feds are after you they will get you one way or another. This is in some ways the most frightening case of all. This is a gripping book if you are at all interested in trial law.

Rating:
Summary: Gripping real life drama & civics lesson rolled into one
Review: I found this non-fiction book to be as captivating a read - and frankly, much better written - than many of the fictional legal thrillers and courtroom dramas filling the bookstore shelves these days. Add to that the fact that this book offers great insight into our criminal justice system and the import role of the criminal defense attorney in it, and you have a book that is, in my opinion, a must-read.

All that being said, I think that perhaps what impressed me most about this book is what is not in it - celebrity name dropping. Black is clearly set apart from some of his colleagues in the high profile defense lawyer set by his choices of cases to include in this book. Having represented a number of "household names" in cases which received considerable media attention, Black writes in his book about none of them, choosing instead cases in which he represented people outside of the public eye and who came from a variety of walks of life. He should be commended for this and his book is rendered all the more impactful by the lack of the "tabloid" element.

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Summary: Excellent Step by Step Understanding of Casework
Review: I really enjoyed "Black's Law." He tells four different seemingly story-like narratives about four different cases. He discusses in detail every aspect of trying a case from research to voire dire. If you are interested in either legal strategy or just in a good story, you should read this book.

Rating:
Summary: The Master Barrister
Review: Roy Black's book reads more like a Michael Crichton novel than something one would find in the non-fiction section. But that's what makes this book so incredible--the stories and the people fighting for justice are real.

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Summary: Roy Black should be cloned
Review: This book should be mandatory reading for every criminal defense attorney and law student. Roy Black's trial strategies are the backbone of American justice. Black believes in and implements the adversarial principle in his work. He is keenly aware of the demise of justice in this country and is effective in insuring liberty and justice for all.