Worse than the Devil

April 22, 2013
Strang, a criminal defense lawyer and professor of law, examines the dramatic case of the Bay View Eleven, a group of Italian immigrants arrested after a Milwaukee riot in 1917. In this in-depth study, he analyzes how their trial, coming on the heels of a police station bombing, was grossly mismanaged and sensationalizedâessentially acting as proxy for the other tragedy. From an "ineffectual" judge to feuding lawyers in a system biased against Italians, all cards were stacked against the defendants. Strang covers every aspect of the case in exhaustive, sometimes lurid, detail, drawing in outlying factors such as the anarchist Emma Goldman, the renowned lawyer Clarence Darrow, the mass trial of the IWW, and the unrelated bombing which played such a pivotal role. Accessible if prone to purple prose, Strang paints a convincing and critical picture of the events in question, illuminating this moment in American history and justice. The result is an expose of a corrupt, confusing, much-abused system during a time lacking in oversight, bound to be of interest to scholars and hobbyists alike. 20 b/w photos.

March 15, 2013
In the early part of the twentieth century, before the Russian Revolution, anarchists, rather than Communists, were feared as the most dangerous promoters of violent revolution in the U.S. Anarchists were blamed, tried, and executed for the so-called Haymarket Riot, and a self-proclaimed anarchist assassinated President McKinley. In 1917, the U.S. entered the war in Europe, and both the oppositional agitation of anarchists and the fear and hatred of them intensified. On November 24 of that year, a powerful bomb exploded in a Milwaukee police station, killing 9 police officers and a civilian. Investigation immediately focused on local anarchists, but evidence was scant, and no one was ever charged. In what seems to have been an effort to win a consolation prize, 11 anarchists were charged by local prosecutors with assault with intent to kill for a fatal confrontation at a rally two months earlier. As Strang, a criminal defense attorney and law professor, shows, the investigations and trial of the 11 was a travesty that reeked of ethnic and political prejudice and tainted the judiciary, prosecution, and even defense attorneys. This is a riveting account of a miscarriage of justice relevant to our times, when fear of radicals of a different stripe may infect our system of justice.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)