"Contrary to Popular Opinion", by Alan Dershowitz

Alan Dershowitz was once known as one of the best attorneys in the United States. Unfortunately, he pretty much self-destructed after the turn of the century, when he became more and more obsessed with issues relating to the state of Israel, and less and less concerned with U.S. legal issues. His credibility was completely destroyed after he joined the Trump defense team in January of 2021 for the second impeachment case. He argued that proof of a crime was necessary for an impeachment to succeed, a pathetically weak argument, and the exact opposite of what he had argued during the Clinton impeachment in 1998-1999. To cement his dishonor, he lobbied President Trump for clemency for his past clients still in federal custody, and his efforts played a role in at least twelve clemency grants.

"Contrary to Popular Opinion" is a collecton of Dershowitz's newspaper columns during the period of 1988-1992, when he was still at the height of his legal abilities. The book is divided into five parts, containing a total of fifteen chapters.

Part One deals with the state of our legal system. Dershowitz writes that "Our judges, including Supreme Court judges, are among the least qualified in the democratic world today....Many judges are incredibly lazy, regarding their position as a kind of benign retirement from the rigors of law practice." He concudes that "There is no excuse for our present system of judicial selection, which focuses so heavily on rewarding poitical hacks. We are entitled to better."

In contrast to his low opinion of judges, Dershowitz gives high marks to juries. He likes the fact that jurors are "independent of the powers that be", and are thus free to vote their consciences.

Regarding the Supreme Court, Dershowitz bemoans the loss of Marshall and Brennan to reitrement, and oberves that "Big government is beginning to win nearly every case in which the rights of individuals are pitted against the power of governments". But he is enouraged that a centrist plurality in the Court may be emerging, consisting of O'Connor, Kennedy, and Souter.

Part Two consists of three chapters devoted to free speech issues. Dershowitz is a strong advocate of the first amendment's free speech provisions, and he skewers both the left and the right equally when either side calls for censorship of the expression of ideas from the other side. This book was publioshed in 1992, before the rise of the Internet, so it's possible Dershowitz may have moderated his zealous free speech views.

Part Three consists of three chapters on issues relating to individual rights. He says that the right-wing emphasis on increasing penalties and decreasing defendants' rights in the interest of achieving "law and order" is just plain wrong, and would result in no real decrease in violent crime, which is "primarily a function of factors beyond the control of the legal system". Regarding drugs, he thinks that decriminalizaton should be considered.

Part Four consists of four chapters on sex, life, and death. Abortion is extensively discussed, as the repeal of Roe v. Wade was on the table in several Supreme Court cases during this period. Capital punishment and the right to die were also burning issues.

But the issue Dershowitz devotes the most attention to is that of rape. His greatest ire is reserved for the rape shield laws, which protect the itentity of the alleged victim from being reealed. He sees these laws as a residue of outdated thinking that there is a stigma attached to being a rape victim. He points to the unfairness of the names of defendnts being made public, but not that of their accusers. He points out that if the name of an alleged victim is published, people who know her might come forward with information useful to the case. He repeatedly cites a case in which, once the name bcame known, it was discoverd that she had made eleven false rape reports in another state!

Dershowitz emphasizes that the presumption of innocence before trial is vitally important. He points out tht FBI statistics show that 8.6% of rape reports are unfounded, compared to 2.3% for other crimes. He correctly points out that we need to be extra skeptical about all "single-witness cases". His well-reasoned conclousion is that "Only when we come to realize that rape is a crime of violence, an aggravated assault, will we be able to treat it like other crimes of violence--both in court and in the media."

Part Five consists of four chapters on the rise of anti-Semitism. Here Dershowitz veers off away from the law and into politics, so I won't comment further.

The value of this book is threefold. First, it provides a useful historical snapshot of the burning issues during the 1988-1992 time period. Scond, we get the benefit of seeing how a gret legal mind analyzes some important legal issues. And third, the insights are provided in succinct two-page bites, never failing to hold the reader's interest.