Service Alert
Website maintenance April 24 10pm ET
On Wednesday April 24 at 10pm ET the CELA website will be unavailable for about 15 minutes for planned maintenance.
On Wednesday April 24 at 10pm ET the CELA website will be unavailable for about 15 minutes for planned maintenance.
Showing 1001 - 1020 of 1645 items
By Hon. M. Margaret McKeown. 2022
U.S. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas was a giant in the legal world, even if he is often remembered…
for his four wives, as a potential vice-presidential nominee, as a target of impeachment proceedings, and for his tenure as the longest-serving justice from 1939 to 1975. His most enduring legacy, however, is perhaps his advocacy for the environment. Douglas was the spiritual heir to early twentieth-century conservation pioneers such as Teddy Roosevelt and John Muir. His personal spiritual mantra embraced nature as a place of solitude, sanctuary, and refuge. Caught in the giant expansion of America&’s urban and transportation infrastructure after World War II, Douglas became a powerful leader in forging the ambitious goals of today&’s environmental movement. And, in doing so, Douglas became a true citizen justice. In a way unthinkable today, Douglas ran a one-man lobby shop from his chambers at the U.S. Supreme Court, bringing him admiration from allies in conservation groups but raising ethical issues with his colleagues. He became a national figure through his books, articles, and speeches warning against environmental dangers. Douglas organized protest hikes to leverage his position as a national icon, he lobbied politicians and policymakers privately about everything from logging to highway construction and pollution, and he protested at the Supreme Court through his voluminous and passionate dissents. Douglas made a lasting contribution to both the physical environment and environmental law—with trees still standing, dams unbuilt, and beaches protected as a result of his work. His merged roles as citizen advocate and justice also put him squarely in the center of ethical dilemmas that he never fully resolved. Citizen Justice elucidates the why and how of these tensions and their contemporary lessons against the backdrop of Douglas&’s unparalleled commitment to the environment.By Steve Ryan. 2022
After years working in homicide, retired Toronto detective Steve Ryan reflects on six cases he will never forget.Retired detective Steve…
Ryan worked in Toronto’s homicide squad for over a decade. For Ryan, the stories of Toronto’s most infamous crimes were more than just a headline read over morning coffee — they were his everyday life. After investigating over one hundred homicides, Ryan can never forget the tragedies and the victims, even after his retirement from the police force. In The Ghosts That Haunt Me, he reflects on six of the many cases that greatly impacted him — seven people whose lives were senselessly taken — and that he still thinks about nearly every day. While the stories are hard to tell for Ryan, they were harder to live through. Yet somewhere between the crimes and the heartache is a glimmer of hope that good eventually does prevail and that healing can come after grief.By M. William Phelps. 2011
After her mother's untimely death, Clara Schwartz became distant, withdrawn. Her father, a renowned DNA researcher, lived in a farmhouse…
outside Leesburg, Virginia, where in December 2001, he was fatally stabbed by what seemed to be a ninja-style sword. Police arrested Kyle Hulbert, a troubled teen--and aspiring vampire. Kyle was Clara's friend, one of a circle obsessed with role-playing games. Drawing on exclusive interviews with the killer, bestselling author M. William Phelps reveals a frightening subculture, the tragic collision of two young people's dark worlds, and its deadly consequences.Includes 16 Pages Of Dramatic PhotosBy Laura Tillman. 2016
In Cold Blood meets Adrian Nicole LeBlanc's Random Family: A harrowing, profoundly personal investigation of the causes, effects, and communal…
toll of a deeply troubling crime--the brutal murder of three young children by their parents in the border city of Brownsville, Texas.On March 11, 2003, in Brownsville, Texas--one of America's poorest cities--John Allen Rubio and Angela Camacho murdered their three young children. The apartment building in which the brutal crimes took place was already rundown, and in their aftermath a consensus developed in the community that it should be destroyed. It was a place, neighbors felt, that was plagued by spiritual cancer. In 2008, journalist Laura Tillman covered the story for The Brownsville Herald. The questions it raised haunted her, particularly one asked by the sole member of the city's Heritage Council to oppose demolition: is there any such thing as an evil building? Her investigation took her far beyond that question, revealing the nature of the toll that the crime exacted on a city already wracked with poverty. It sprawled into a six-year inquiry into the larger significance of such acts, ones so difficult to imagine or explain that their perpetrators are often dismissed as monsters alien to humanity. With meticulous attention and stunning compassion, Tillman surveyed those surrounding the crimes, speaking with the lawyers who tried the case, the family's neighbors and relatives and teachers, even one of the murderers: John Allen Rubio himself, whom she corresponded with for years and ultimately met in person. The result is a brilliant exploration of some of our age's most important social issues, from poverty to mental illness to the death penalty, and a beautiful, profound meditation on the truly human forces that drive them. It is disturbing, insightful, and mesmerizing in equal measure.By Kati Marton. 2016
This astonishing real-life spy thriller, filled with danger, misplaced loyalties, betrayal, treachery, and pure evil, with a plot twist worthy…
of John le Carré, is relevant today as a tale of fanaticism and the lengths it takes us to.True Believer reveals the life of Noel Field, an American who betrayed his country and crushed his family. Field, once a well-meaning and privileged American, spied for Stalin during the 1930s and '40s. Then, a pawn in Stalin's sinister master strategy, Field was kidnapped and tortured by the KGB and forced to testify against his own Communist comrades. How does an Ivy League-educated, US State Department employee, deeply rooted in American culture and history, become a hardcore Stalinist? The 1930s, when Noel Field joined the secret underground of the International Communist Movement, were a time of national collapse: ten million Americans unemployed, rampant racism, retreat from the world just as fascism was gaining ground, and Washington--pre FDR--parched of fresh ideas. Communism promised the righting of social and political wrongs and many in Field's generation were seduced by its siren song. Few, however, went as far as Noel Field in betraying their own country. With a reporter's eye for detail, and a historian's grasp of the cataclysmic events of the twentieth century, Kati Marton captures Field's riveting quest for a life of meaning that went horribly wrong. True Believer is supported by unprecedented access to Field family correspondence, Soviet Secret Police records, and reporting on key players from Alger Hiss, CIA Director Allen Dulles, and World War II spy master, "Wild Bill" Donovan--to the most sinister of all: Josef Stalin. A story of another time, this is a tale relevant for all times.By Mischa Titiev. 1992
In this classic work, renowned anthropologist Mischa Titiev presents his research on the Hopi Native-Americans. Based on fieldwork he did…
in period 1932 -1940, he describes many aspects of the Hopi culture, from land use and kinship to ceremonies and games. IllustratedTHE HOPI Indians, a tribe speaking a Shoshonean language, are located in the Little Colorado drainage, about 70 miles north of Winslow, Arizona. They are the westernmost representatives of the Pueblo pattern of culture, and archaeological evidence has indicated that they are probably the direct descendants of some of the earliest tribes which settled in the Southwest. Owing in part to geographical isolation, and in part to their stubborn resistance to outside influences, the Hopi have managed to preserve so great a part of their aboriginal culture that they afford a particularly attractive subject for ethnological investigation.By Reymundo Sanchez, Sonia Rodriguez. 2008
This is a raw and powerful memoir not only of one woman's struggle to survive the streets but also of…
her ascent to the top ranks of the new mafia, where the only people more dangerous than rival gangs were members of her own. At age five Sonia Rodriguez's stepfather began to abuse her; at 10 she was molested by her uncle and beaten by her mother when she told on him; and by 13 her home had become a hangout for the Latin Kings and Queens who were friends with her older sister. Threatened by rival gang members at school, Sonia turned away from her education and extracurricular activities in favor of a world of drugs and violence. The Latin Kings, one of the largest and most notorious street gangs in America, became her refuge, but its violence cost her friends, freedom, self-respect, and nearly her life. As a Latin Queen, she experienced the exhilarating highs and unbelievable lows of gang life. From being shot at by her own gang and kicked out at age 18 with an infant daughter to rejoining the gang and distinguishing herself as a leader, her legacy as Lady Q was cemented both for her willingness to commit violence and for her role as a drug mule. For the first time, a woman's perspective on gang life is presented.Patrick Floyd Jarvis Garrett (1850-1908) was an American Old West lawman, bartender and customs agent who became renowned for killing…
Billy the Kid. He was the sheriff of Lincoln County, New Mexico as well as Doña Ana County, New Mexico.Life of Pat F. Garrett and the Taming of the Boarder Outlaw tells the story of the sheriff who pursued and killed Billy the Kid. Authored by John Milton Scanland, a newspaperman who knew both Pat F. Garrett and New Mexico well, the book was written shortly after Pat F. Garrett’s own slaying in 1908.A thrilling read, no collection of Western Outlaw material is complete without it.By Thai Jones, Ronald Kitchen, Logan McBride. 2018
Ronald Kitchen was 21, on his way to buy milk for his four-year-old, when he was picked up by the…
Chicago police, brutally tortured, and coerced to confess to five counts of heinous murder. He spent 22 years in prison, 13 of those on death row, labeled as a monster. Kitchen was only one of the many victims of Jon Burge and his notorious midnight crew that terrorized and incarcerated black men—118 have come forward so far—on the South Side of Chicago for nearly two decades. Not one to give up, Kitchen cofounded the Death Row 10 from his maximum security cellblock. Together, these men fought to expose the grave injustices that led to their wrongful convictions. The Death Row 10 appeared on 60 Minutes II, Nightline, Oprah and Geraldo Rivera, and with the help of lawyers and activists outside, were instrumental in turning the tide against the death penalty in Illinois. Kitchen was finally exonerated in 2013 and filed a high profile lawsuit against the Chicago Police Department, Jon Burge, Mayor Richard Daley, and the Cook County State's Attorney. Kitchen's story is outrageous and heartbreaking. Largely absent from the current social justice narratives are the testimonies of the victims themselves. Kitchen is a rare survivor who has turned his suffering into a public cause and is poised to become a powerful spokesperson. The atrocities of the Midnight Crew have been brought to light through Kitchen's actions and are now part of the discussion as the nation engages in an unprecedented conversation about racism.By Wilbert Rideau. 2010
From Wilbert Rideau, the award-winning journalist who spent forty-four years in Louisiana prisons working against unimaginable odds to redeem himself,…
the story of a remarkable life: a crime, its punishment, and ultimate triumph. After killing a woman in a moment of panic following a botched bank robbery, Rideau, denied a fair trial, was improperly sentenced to death at the age of nineteen. After more than a decade on death row, his sentence was amended to life imprisonment, and he joined the inmate population of the infamous Angola penitentiary. Soon Rideau became editor of the prison newsmagazineThe Angolite,which under his leadership became an uncensored, daring, and crusading journal instrumental in reforming the violent prison and the corrupt Louisiana justice system. With the same incisive feel for detail that brought Rideau great critical acclaim, here he brings to vivid life the world of the prison through the power of his pen. We see Angola's unique culture, encompassing not only rivalries, sexual slavery, ingrained racism, and daily, soul-killing injustices but also acts of courage and decency by keeper and kept alike. As we relive Rideau's remarkable rehabilitation--he lived a more productive life in prison than do most outside--we also witness his long struggle for justice. In the Place of Justicegoes far beyond the confines of a prison memoir, giving us a searing exposé of the failures of our legal system framed within the dramatic tale of a man who found meaning, purpose, and hope in prison. This is a deeply moving, eloquent, and inspirational story about perseverance, unexpected friendships and love, and the possibility that good can be forged under any circumstances. From the Hardcover edition.By Frank I. Michelman. 1999
In Brennan and Democracy, a leading thinker in U.S. constitutional law offers some powerful reflections on the idea of "constitutional…
democracy," a concept in which many have seen the makings of paradox. Here Frank Michelman explores the apparently conflicting commitments of a democratic governmental system where key aspects of such important social issues as affirmative action, campaign finance reform, and abortion rights are settled not by a legislative vote but by the decisions of unelected judges. Can we--or should we--embrace the values of democracy together with constitutionalism, judicial supervision, and the rule of law? To answer this question, Michelman calls into service the judicial career of Supreme Court Justice William Brennan, the country's model "activist" judge for the past forty years. Michelman draws on Brennan's record and writings to suggest how the Justice himself might have understood the judiciary's role in the simultaneous promotion of both democratic and constitutional government. The first chapter prompts us to reflect on how tough and delicate an act it is for the members of a society to attempt living together as a people devoted to self-government. The second chapter seeks to renew our appreciation for democratic liberal political ideals, and includes an extensive treatment of Brennan's judicial opinions, which places them in relation to opposing communitarian and libertarian positions. Michelman also draws on the views of two other prominent constitutional theorists, Robert Post and Ronald Dworkin, to build a provocative discussion of whether democracy is best conceived as a "procedural" or a "substantive" ideal.By Slava Pastuk. 2022
The true story of a music editor at VICE who tried to become the coolest reporter the company had ever…
had — by becoming an international drug smuggler. In 2019, music reporter Slava P, an editor for VICE media, was sentenced to nine years in prison for recruiting friends into a scheme to smuggle cocaine from the U.S. into Australia. Five of them were already in jail. Immediately, Slava P was internationally infamous. Was he a victim of pressure to commit extreme acts for the sake of a good story? A product of a drug-obsessed work environment? Or a manipulator who pushed vulnerable young people into crime?Here, Slava P tells his side of the story: what exactly happened and how the precarious, dog-eat-dog atmosphere of a media company can lead the young, the naive, and the ambitious into taking crazy risks.Bad Trips is a story about drugs, hip-hop, influencers, and glamour, set against the backdrop of one of the world’s most influential news and entertainment sites, VICE. Its cast of beautiful young people and semi-famous rappers passes from the seediest apartments to the most elegant of private clubs. Slava P’s chronicling of his years at this famous hotbed of excess is a piercing insight into contemporary media culture.All royalties from the sale of Bad Trips go to co-author Brian Whitney.By Gerald Posner. 2003
The assassination of John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963, continues to inspire interest ranging from well-meaning speculation to bizarre…
conspiracy theories and controversial filmmaking. But in this landmark book,reissued with a new afterword for the 40th anniversary of the assassination, Gerald Posner examines all of the available evidence and reaches the only possible conclusion: Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. There was no second gunman on the grassy knoll. The CIA was not involved. And although more than four million pages of documents have been released since Posner first made his case, they have served only to corroborate his findings. Case Closedremains the classic account against which all books about JFK's death must be measured.By Aubrey Lee Brooks. 2011
In this life of Walter Clark, the author tells of an antebellum boyhood on a Carolina plantation and a long…
career of involvement in the bitterest sociopolitical battles the state of North Carolina has known, which won Clark a national reputation as a liberal noted for his straight thinking and his clear speaking.Originally published in 1947.A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.By Michael M. Baden. 2023
A revealing history of covering up the true causes of deaths of BIPOC in custody—from the forensic pathologist whose work changed…
the course of the George Floyd, Eric Garner, and Michael Brown casesDr. Michael Baden has been involved in some of the most high-profile civil rights and police brutality cases in US history, from the government&’s 1976 re-investigation of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., to the 2014 death of Michael Brown, whose case sparked the initial Ferguson protests that grew into the Black Lives Matter movement. The playbook hasn&’t changed since 1979, when Dr. Baden was demoted from his job as New York City&’s Chief Medical Examiner after ruling that the death of a Black man in police custody was a homicide. So in 2020 when the Floyd family, wary of the same system that oversaw George Floyd&’s death, needed a second opinion—Dr. Baden is who they called. In these pages, Dr. Baden chronicles his six decades on the front lines of the fight for accountability within the legal system—including the long history of medical examiners of using a controversial syndrome called excited delirium (a term that shows up in the pathology report for George Floyd) to explain away the deaths of BIPOC restrained by police. In the process, he brings to life the political issues that go on in the wake of often unrecorded fatal police encounters and the standoff between law enforcement and those they are sworn to protect.Full of behind-the-scenes drama and surprising revelations, American Autopsy is an invigorating—and enraging—read that is both timely and crucial for this turning point in our nation&’s history.By Michael J. Cain, Jack Clarke. 2007
The Tangled Web tells the dramatic story of Detective Richard Cain, the man the FBI described as “possibly the most…
corrupt police official in the history of Chicago.” Cain led double life—at once a chief investigator and a “made” man, both a detective who led raids on gambling rings and a soldier carrying out hits for Mafia bosses. Using years of research, interviews, family anecdotes, and rare documents, Michael Cain creates a comprehensive and compelling biography of his half-brother. This edition features an all-new introduction by the author. In a story that reads like the plot of Martin Scorsese’s The Departed, Cain played both ends against the middle to become a household name in Chicago and a notorious figure in both the Mob and the world of Chicago law enforcement. Before his execution by shotgun in Rose’s Sandwich Shop, Cain’s legend would grow to the point of rumored involvement in the assassination of John F. Kennedy and the FBI’s plot to assassinate Fidel Castro. Filled with fascinating and until-now unknown facts, The Tangled Web tells the full story of this one-man crime wave.By Anthony M. DeStefano. 2021
From enforcer to godfather, Vito Genovese rose through the ranks of La Cosa Nostra to head of one of the…
wealthiest and most dangerous crime families in American history. Vito Genoveseran rackets as a member of Giuseppe &“Joe the Boss&” Masseria&’s gang in New York City before joining forces with Lucky Luciano, Frank Costello, Meyer Lansky, and Bugsy Siegel as bootleggers during Prohibition. As a soldier in the Castellammarese War, he helped orchestrate Masseria&’s death on behalf of Brooklyn crime lord Salvatore Maranzano, consolidating his position and power before ensuring Maranzano, too, was knocked off. For the next three decades, Vito Genovese—shrewd, merciless, and utterly savage—killed countless gangsters in his bid to become the capo di tutti i capi—boss of bosses—in the American Mafia. Genovese would betray some of the mafia&’s most notorious bosses, including Albert Anastasia and Frank Costello, to eventually seize control of the Luciano crime family, one that still bears his name today. In The Deadly Don, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Anthony M. DeStefano presents the rise and fall of Vito Genovese in this first comprehensive biography of the legendary mafioso—from his childhood in Naples, Italy, and the beginnings of his bullet-ridden criminal career on lower Manhattan&’s mean streets, through his self-exile in the mid-1930s back to his homeland where he ran a black market operation under the fascist regime of Benito Mussolini, and his return to New York where Genovese made a fortune as the head of an illegal narcotics empire. DeStefano reveals the important and terrifying role Genovese played in the creation of the Mafia, detailing his bloody and ruthless lifetime of crime that would put him behind bars for his last fifteen years—and securing his infamous place in the history of organized crime.By Larry McShane. 2016
VINCENT “CHIN” GIGANTE He started out as a professional boxer—until he found his true calling as a ruthless contract killer.…
Hand-picked by Vito Genovese to run the Genovese Family when Vito was sent to prison, Chin raked in more than $100 million for the Genovese family and routinely ordered the murders of mobsters who violated the Mafia code—including John Gotti. At the height of his power, he controlled an underworld empire of close to three hundred made men, making the Genovese Family the most powerful in the U.S. And yet Vincent “Chin” Gigante was, to all outside appearances, certifiably crazy. He wandered the streets of Greenwich Village in a ratty bathrobe and slippers. He urinated in public, played pinochle in storefronts, and hid a second family from his wife. On twenty-two occasions, he admitted himself to a mental hospital—evading criminal prosecution while insuring his continued reign as “The Oddfather.” It took nearly thirty years of endless psychiatric evaluations by a parade of puzzled doctors for federal authorities to finally bring him down.By Peter Lance. 2009
In Deal with the Devil, five-time Emmy Award-winning investigative reporter Peter Lance draws on three decades of once-secret FBI files…
to tell the definitive story of Greg Scarpa Sr. , a Mafia capo who "stopped counting" after fifty murders, while secretly betraying the Colombo crime family as a Top Echelon FBI informant. Lance traces Scarpas shadowy relationship with the FBI all the way back to 1960, when his debriefings went straight to J. Edgar Hoover. In forty-two years of murder and racketeering, Scarpa served only thirty days in jail thanks to his secret relationship with the Feds. This is the untold story that will rewrite Mafia history as we know it --a page-turning work of journalism that reads like a Scorsese film. Deal with the Devil includes more than 130 illustrations, crime scene photos, and never-before-seen FBI documents.By Michael Emmett. 2021
‘Michael is living proof that love always has the power to bring you home.’ Charlie Mackesy‘s A cracking read. Really…
gets to the bottom of the madness of a man fighting his demons. ’Ray Winstone‘ His life may have had its ups and downs, but it is wonderful example of God’s transforming power.&’ Nicky Gumbel, Vicar of HTB & pioneer of ALPHA ‘Take it from me, Michael got up to some mischief. And to find some peace at the end of it all! You really need to hear this story.&’ Former London Crime Boss Growing up, Michael wanted nothing more than to follow in his dad’s footsteps and join the family business. Aged 18, he did just that and entered into the glamourous, dangerous world of organised crime.Michael&’s father, a career criminal and contemporary of the infamous Krays, was a wayward role model. Soon Michael’s criminal activities were funding a reckless lifestyle of drugs, sex, and violence. But the high couldn’t last. In 1993 both men were arrested for their involvement in a £13-million smuggling operation. Michael was sentenced to twelve years, serving time in the same prison as his dad. Inside HMP Exeter, Michael found something he had never expected: answers. A chance encounter in the prison chapel led to an experience that would shake the foundations of his life. This is a true story of trauma and transformation, one man’s search for redemption, and the struggle to become the father he never had.