The Trial

July 11, 2005
Kadri's history of the criminal trial in the Western legal tradition presents representative cases, many famous, some little known, to illustrate the approaches, both rational and not, that organized societies have used to deal with law-breaking. One theme is the role of evidence in criminal prosecutions. Medieval trial by ordeal, for example, relied on the direct intervention of God to reveal guilt or innocence. In later epochs, confessions were accorded decisive weight, even if they were extracted by torture, as in the Inquisition and Stalin's show trials. Today, of course, we apply an intricate code of evidence, but, the author says, we still have verdicts based on ignorance and hysteria, and we have celebrity trials where evidence is subordinated to publicity. Much more serious is Kadri's summary of war crimes prosecutions stemming from atrocities in WWII and in Vietnam. Not many of the trials discussed reached objectively just conclusions, but these judicial failures tend to illuminate the dynamics (secrecy vs. transparency, hatred of crime vs. fear of mistaken verdicts) underlying criminal prosecutions. This thoughtful survey by Kadri, a prize-winning travel writer and criminal lawyer in England, helps us understand how far our system has advanced and how far we still have to go. B&w illus. Agent, Derek Johns, A.P. Watt (U.K.)
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August 15, 2005
Kadri, who practices criminal law in England, has penned a superb narrative history of trials that explains with equal doses of passion and persuasion the dynamics that have led to courtroom dramas involving all manner of defendants from witches to religious dissidents to modern-day war criminals -not to mention animals and locomotives. Only someone having a broad understanding of law, history, sociology, religion, psychology and politics could have written this riveting and lucid account of justice and vengeance, secrecy and spectacle, while delineating the fundamental conflict between reason and emotion that is inherent in the Western legal tradition. Indeed, Kadri's most lasting contribution may reside in his analysis of the trial process as a cultural construct. The book is bound to garner great praise. Nevertheless, its sound scholarship is marred by the author's regular use of casually foul language, juvenile figures of speech, and provocative illustrations, none of which serves to advance his arguments or clarify his subjects. Notwithstanding the needless vulgarities, this book will be a remarkable addition to the shelves of both general and specialized libraries by reason of its contributions to our understanding of that preeminent cultural phenomenon, the criminal trial. -Gilles Renaud, Ontario Court of Justice, Cornwall

Copyright 2005 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2005
Unexpectedly lively for a legal history, Kadri's study of the trajectory of the modern Western jury trial bounces from the Inquisition to Nuremberg to O. J. Simpson with an eye for the fundamental (the crucial importance of obtaining a confession, for example); the perennial (political power struggles played out in court); and the absurd (trying corpses, animals, and inanimate things). At times, the author's penchant for the ridiculous threatens hilarity; a passage on "trial by morsel," a medieval ordeal revealing legal truth through swallowing prowess, rivals any Monty Python skit. Yet beneath all the courtroom oddities, Kadri makes a set of deadly serious points about the trial's social function as a public morality play that, through spectacle and perhaps superstition, preserves order by publicly reiterating precepts key to a society's self-image. Nor are his points solely bound to medieval jurisprudence: as shown by Stalin's show trials, the Scopes trial, the Bernhard Goetz case, and others, spectacle is alive, well, and, these days, on Court TV. Entertaining, sociologically perceptive, and highly recommended.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2005, American Library Association.)