Word: dershowitz
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MONEY, SEX, DRUGS, mistresses, heiresses, revenge, murder and due process appeals briefs. One of these things is not like the others. But Alan M. Dershowitz thinks they all go together, so he's written a book about them. Reversal of Fortune is the Harvard Law School professor's story of the media event that passed for the von Bulow trial in Rhode Island...
...read this book for a scholarly, in depth look at the appeals process, which Dershowitz directed and which gained a second trial for von Bulow? Come on, you want to read about the sleaze. You want to know about the big mansions in Newport, the drugs, the booze, the fast cars, the lifestyles of the rich and famous. What about Claus' many mistresses? What about those rumors that Sunny popped every pill in the book...
...problem with Reversal of Fortune is that it tries too hard to mix in the sleaze with a balanced, legalistic approach to the trial. In the end, anyone who wanted to know just how Dershowitz--the nation's premier criminal appeals attorney--handled this case would feel a little short shrift, and so would anyone who wanted to read about all the trashy gossip...
...Bulow was convicted of trying to kill his wife two times. Then he called in Dershowitz to appeal the verdict to the Rhode Island Supreme Court. With his hot shot team of lawyers and law students, Dershowitz argued that von Bulow's initial trial had been unfair because defense attorneys had not been given access to certain evidence. Dershowitz also argued that the use of a private investigator to uncover evidence for prosecution could imperil people's liberty from unwarranted searches of their private property. He won on the first argument but not on the second...
...DERSHOWITZ TELLS the tale of the trials very well. He has a way with describing the scene and explaining the legal maneuvering. So two-thirds of his book is spent recounting the trials and the other third recounting the appeals process. He also introduces some evidence that could never have been brought to trial--Truman Capote's assertion that he had seen Sunny inject herself and that she was a well-known drug user, and the assertions of a minor drug dealer who said he had delivered drugs to Sunny...