Let's Get Free
A Hip-Hop Theory of Justice
paperback
$16.95 / £12.99
NOW IN PAPERBACK: In a book Library Journal calls “required reading for all concerned about their neighborhoods and our criminal justice system,” a former federal prosecutor’s radical argument for reform
Destined to make us all think in new ways about the concept of justice, the role of hip-hop in American culture, and the power that everyday people have to shape and influence their environment.
—Henry Louis Gates Jr., Harvard University
—Henry Louis Gates Jr., Harvard University
Paul Butler was an ambitious federal prosecutor, a Harvard Law grad who gave up his corporate law salary to fight the good fight—until one day he was arrested on the street and charged with a crime he didn’t commit. The Volokh Conspiracy calls Butler’s account of his trial "the most riveting first chapter I have ever read."
In a book Harvard Law professor Charles Ogletree calls "a must read," Butler looks at places where ordinary citizens meet the justice system—as jurors, witnesses, and in encounters with the police—and explores what "doing the right thing" means in a corrupt system.
Since Let’s Get Free’s publication in spring 2009, Butler has become the go-to person for commentary on criminal justice and race relations: he appeared on ABC News, Good Morning America, and Fox News, published op-eds in the New York Times and other national papers, and is in demand to speak across the country. The paperback edition brings Butler’s groundbreaking and highly controversial arguments—jury nullification (voting "not guilty" in drug cases as a form of protest), just saying "no" when the police request rnyour permission to search, and refusing to work inside the system as a snitch or a prosecutor—to a whole new audience.
In a book Harvard Law professor Charles Ogletree calls "a must read," Butler looks at places where ordinary citizens meet the justice system—as jurors, witnesses, and in encounters with the police—and explores what "doing the right thing" means in a corrupt system.
Since Let’s Get Free’s publication in spring 2009, Butler has become the go-to person for commentary on criminal justice and race relations: he appeared on ABC News, Good Morning America, and Fox News, published op-eds in the New York Times and other national papers, and is in demand to speak across the country. The paperback edition brings Butler’s groundbreaking and highly controversial arguments—jury nullification (voting "not guilty" in drug cases as a form of protest), just saying "no" when the police request rnyour permission to search, and refusing to work inside the system as a snitch or a prosecutor—to a whole new audience.
A former federal prosecutor, Paul Butler is the country’s leading expert on jury nullification. He provides legal commentary for CNN, NPR, and the Fox News Network, and has been featured on 60 Minutes and profiled in the Washington Post. He has written for the Post, the Boston Globe, and the Los Angeles Times, and is a law professor at George Washington University in Washington, D.C.
Spring 2010
paperback
5 1/2 x 8 1/4, 224 pages
978-1-59558-500-4
paperback
5 1/2 x 8 1/4, 224 pages
978-1-59558-500-4
Other Editions:
For overseas orders, please contact your local representative from our
Sales & Distribution page.