Taking the Stand: My Life inthe Law by Alan Dershowitz (Crown/Random House, 2013, 546 pages,
$28.00) is a tedious exercise in self-justification running on for
546 pages and containing 889 footnotes, most of which add nothing to
an already bloated and defensive account of his life and career. From
the Preface, which is mostly a catalog of the important cases and
famous people he has been involved with during a career almost as
long as the book, through a series of interminable “Oh, I forgot to
write about this earlier...” chapters at the end, Dershowitz uses
this one shot opportunity to write a self-justifying screed and
settle scores with the many people he sees as having wronged him
during his life and career. I can only imagine an editor at Crown
Publishers saying, “Alan, let's rewrite to include this in an
earlier chapter or eliminate it entirely as redundant.” “Oh, No,”
Alan Dershowitz would say repetitively and ad nauseum, “this
segment is essential.” while finally breaking the editor down.
Raised
in the Borough Park section of Brooklyn to poor Othodox Jews from
Eastern Europe, Dershowitz attended Jewish schools, called Yeshivas,
until his graduation from high school. There he discovered that
Orthodox Judaism relied more on careful observance of the customs and
rituals of his faith than upon belief in its tenants. Gifted with
what he claims as a photographic memory, he describes himself as
constantly questioning everything the rabbis try to teach him, being
rewarded with low grades and criticism despite his outstanding
performance in any state or national test he was confronted with,
and only emerging as a first rate student at Brooklyn College and
Yale Law School. He's somewhat baffled about where his interest in
art, music, and culture came from, but these broadening influences
helped structure his life as he became first the youngest ever member
of the Harvard Law School faculty and then its youngest tenured
faculty member. This early success and security afforded him the
luxury of a long and successful career where he could say, teach, and
explore any area of the law and its intersection with injustice he
wished to examine. For over fifty years, he has done so with huge
success and in public, becoming famous and rich, while frequently
asserting throughout the book that about half his cases were taken
pro bono, with the
gigantic fees paid by his celebrity clients financing his more costly
efforts.
Taking the Stand
is really two books rolled into one. The first is the story of his
life, both personal and professional. It is written in a chatty style
exploring his origins, marriages, children, education, and the
general progress of his career. It is straightforward and pretty much
devoid of any literary style which might make it extremely
interesting. The second book follows his legal passions and interests
through a truly amazing breadth of areas within Constitutional law,
criminal defense, and international law where he has had significant
influence on making law and protecting the rights of others. This
component, although mostly written in language accessible to the lay
reader, is extensive, important, and instructional, although, sadly,
becomes pretty repetitive after several hundred pages, returning many
times to core cases which have helped to shape and define
Dershowitz's career. These include the defense of George Lincoln
Rockwell's right to hold a neo-nazi parade in Skokie, Illinois, the
O.J. Simpson murder case, the Harry Reems defense in Deep
Throat obscenity case, the
murder defense of Claus von Bulow, and a number of other high profile
and controversial cases. Overall, Dershowitz's interests have
included Freedom of Speech with particular emphasis on the elements
of science and psychology which have affected legal practice and
Criminal Justice, with an emphasis on death penalty defense in
numerous high profile and lesser known cases. He repeatedly cites the
way his active legal practice has informed and enriched his teaching
over the years as he brings these cases into the classroom, and his
students onto the defense teams. The third major emphasis in the
book is his work on behalf of the State of Israel as an advocate for
Israeli independence and rights as well as a critic of many of its
policies. While the two stories inform each other, their complexity
and length make Taking the Stand
a painfully long slog through the twists and turns of Dershowitz's
interesting life.
Dershowitz
as an individual emerges as a prickly person with a terrific need to
justify himself to others as well as, perhaps, to himself. He returns
too often to long-running disagreements with MIT linguist and
activist Noam Chomsky, as if Chomsky is stuck in his craw where
Dershowitz is unable to dislodge him. He also wonders, somewhat, on
how he seems to have transitioned from being a traditional Jewish
liberal, taking great joy in his relationship to and work on the
behalf of Ted Kennedy, into being seen as a right winger for his
defense of Israel and moderate stances on other issues. He asserts,
and I think rightly, that he hasn't changed, but views on such issues
a separation of church and state, gun control, capital punishment,
religion and religiosity have changed over time while he has steered
a steady course. His admiration for Judge David Bazelon, U.S. Circuit
Judge in Washington, D.C. And Justice Arthur Goldberg, are huge,
while Justice Antonin Scalia, and his father, are taken on as
opponents reaching the level of scorn. He often contrasts the
admirable Chief Justice Earl Warren with the much less able Warren
Burger. His assessment of the transition of the ACLU (American Civil
Liberties Union) from a neutral guardian of free speech into a
shrill, left-wing cause-driven organization is interesting with a
strong ring of truth to it. Dershowitz asserts that “certainty is
the enemy of truth, freedom, and progress,” while often claiming
the certainty of most of the positions he has taken throughout his
career.
Alan Dershowitz
Alan
Dershowtiz emerges as something of a glory hound and name dropper
while still having been an important and interesting voice for
criminal, civil, and human rights. The book is extensively annotated,
containing 889 footnotes, most of them being self-referential. The
life and career of Alan Dershowitz is a fascinating and important one
both in terms of the law and the convictions motivating his decisions
about how and why to apply his expertise. Sadly, however, he has
chosen the wrong person to tell his story. It will be truly
intriguing to read the account when written with the insight of
history and the objectivity of the solid historian and/or biographer
who decides to write it. I really wanted to like this book much more
than I d id, since I agree with so many of the positions Dershowitz
has taken, but unhappily found the book to be over-written and
under-edited. Taking the Stand
by Alan Dershowitz ( Crown/ Random House, 2013, 546 pages, $28.00)
was supplied to me as an electronic galley by the publisher through
Edelweiss Above the treeline. I read it on my Kindle.
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