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Book Reviews
By Jon M. Sands,Thomas F. Liotti
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Book Review columns.
Indefensible: One Lawyer’s Journey Into the Inferno of American Justice
By David Feige
Little, Brown and Co.
274 pages; $24.95
Reviewed by Jon M. Sands
Abandon all hope ye who enter. This inscription,
carved at hell’s entrance, confronted Dante as he entered into the
inferno. It could serve as a metaphoric inscription, instead of the
usual pious platitudes carved in marble on courthouses, for defendants
entering the criminal justice system. Those who enter such an inferno
would be fortunate to have a public defender as dedicated as David
Feige, and fortunate to have a manual for survival as presented in
Indefensible.
This is an extraordinary book. It is an account of
one day in the life of a Bronx public defender. It is a “typical” day,
which means that there are no astounding trials, confessions blurted
from witnesses on the stand, juries delivering acquittals, or legal
sleight-of-hands that television viewers see on CSI. Instead, Feige, who
is trial chie
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