Description
Book SynopsisTracing the origins of the "black rage" defence back through American history, this work recreates many dramatic legal trials. The author distinguishes between applying an environmental defence and simply blaming society, in the abstract, for individual crimes.
Trade ReviewWithin Harris's reasoned, cogent analysis lurks a legal strategy tethered to the nation's tattered and perennial traditions of white supremacy, which aims to acknowledge it, use it to explain its devastating effects on the black psyche, and provide a legal tool for some degree of amelioration. Ultimately, Black Rage Confronts the Law is more about U. S. power relations than law.Therefore, it will be damned.Therefore, it will be praised.Therefore, it should be read. -- Mumia Abu-Jamal,author of Live from Death Row
Paul Harris made an impact just two years out of law school with his innovative `black rage' defense. Harris convinced the jury that, in America, unemployment for a proud and talented black man can cause . . . a kind of temporary insanity. The theory not only gained Harris's client an acquittal, it left the man's integrity intact. * California Lawyer *
On a deeper and more profound level [this book] illustrates the degree to which social and economic hardship and deprivation can justify human misconduct. * Library Journal *
Any lawyer who deals within the Black community needs to read it. * New York Amsterdam News *
