Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury: Greatest Closing Arguments in Modern Law - Hardcover

Michael S Lief; H. Mitchell Caldwell; Ben Bycel

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0684836610 ISBN 13: 9780684836614

Publisher: Scribner, 1998

Synopsis

A collection of great closing arguments gathers the impassioned concluding oratory of the most famous cases in the twentieth century

About this title

Review:

Anyone who's ever watched Perry Mason knows that the closing argument is a very important part of a big legal case. The closing argument is the "game point" of law, the time when lawyers pull out all the stops on the cajoling and the litigating. Michael S. Lief and his coauthors have collected the closing arguments from 10 noteworthy cases in this volume, introducing each speech with background information on the trial and commentary on the lawyer's technique. In these pages, readers get front-row seats to some of the most riveting trials in this century, including the Charles Manson murder trial, Karen Silkwood's wrongful-death suit, and the trial of the Chicago Seven.

Because the authors chose to include all the courtroom interruptions in the transcript, the Manson summation makes for especially lively reading. Manson and his codefendants repeatedly spoke out of turn during prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi's statement, saying things like "You are going to be eaten up by your own lie" and "Even if I have never been in the Gotham Bank!" Bugliosi's speech is among the most eloquent in the collection, which is why it is so stunning when one of the defendants provokes him so much that he loses his cool and calls her a name that rhymes with rich.

Although the title promises the "greatest closing arguments in modern law," some of the speeches seem to have been chosen because they were connected to important cases rather than because of their own rhetorical merits. However, the cases themselves are interesting, and these transcripts bring them to life better than any summary would. This collection should be of interest to anyone in the legal profession. --Jill Marquis

About the Author:

H. Mitchell Caldwell (left) is a professor of law at Pepperdine University School of Law. A former deputy district attorney, he specializes in death-penalty litigation before the California Supreme Court.

About this edition

• Publisher: Scribner
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0684836610
• ISBN 13: 9780684836614
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 400