Ermingarden (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ermingarden) wrote2025-01-05 01:53 am
ermingarden) wrote2025-01-05 01:53 am
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A Second Chance: A Federal Judge Severely Disappoints Me
A Second Chance: A Federal Judge Decides Who Deserves It by Judge Frederic Block
My Rating: ★★☆☆☆
David Lat recommended A Second Chance as an "engaging and enlightening new book" about the First Step Act (FSA). Unfortunately, I have to assume he didn't read the book in its entirety before describing it that way.
I went into this book wanting and expecting to like it, and not only because of Lat's recommendation. The topic is right up my alley, as I'm interested in the FSA (although it's federal rather than state law, so I don't work with it myself) and in sentencing more generally. The structure seemed interesting: It's built around six actual motions for sentence reduction under the FSA that Block received. The first section of the book has a description of each case, the second section discusses the FSA generally, and in the third section Block explains how he ruled on each motion and why. The idea is that as you read about how the FSA works, you can be thinking about how you would handle each case, and then compare that to what Block actually did.
But here we come to the first disappointment! The first section includes an overview of the crimes committed and sentences received in the original cases, but it does not include any discussion of each defendant's behavior in prison after their sentencing, or other factors not related to the original case that would suggest that their sentences should be reduced. Those factors aren't discussed until the third section, and that makes it impossible to actually apply the FSA analysis to the cases yourself, because the FSA requires that sentence reduction be based on "extraordinary and compelling circumstances," not merely on the present court's disagreement with the prior sentence. Without information about anything after the original sentence, the whole cool structural conceit of the book is out the window.
Overall, this book badly needed a better editor. In addition to the structural issue discussed above, there are various digressions that seem out of place and break the flow of the book. (And a reference to "our schizoid gun and drug laws" in the epilogue should have been caught and rewritten to get the point across in less offensive language.)
One error in particular actually makes me wonder if Block used a ghostwriter who isn't a lawyer: At one point the book refers to the possibility of a jury "finding [someone] innocent." Anyone who knows anything about criminal law will tell you that juries do not make findings of innocence! A verdict of not guilty is not an affirmative finding of innocence, only that the defendant's guilt was not proven beyond a reasonable doubt. A jury can and should return a verdict of not guilty even if every single person on the jury thinks the defendant probably committed the crime, as long as there is reasonable doubt about the defendant's guilt! A finding of innocence is a separate thing, which occurs when a convicted defendant's innocence is subsequently proven to a judge by clear and convincing evidence.
There are also moments that cause me to question Judge Block's assessment of his readers' common sense. For example, in a discussion of the collateral consequences of a felony conviction, Block finishes off a list of such consequences with "if [the defendant] were a bingo devotee, she could not even receive a bingo operator’s license," presenting the restriction as self-evidently absurd. But if I, who have been practicing criminal law for less than two years, can recognize the obvious reason the state would wish to restrict convicted felons from operating legal gambling establishments - legal gambling being naturally often connected to illegal gambling, which is also frequently intertwined with organized crime - then Judge Block, who has been on the bench since before I was even born, should certainly be able to recognize it!
All in all, while I do agree with many of Block's policy arguments - I support the FSA, and I also support potential expansions of compassionate release at the state level, along the lines of what Block urges (although I wish he'd addressed the strain on state court systems, which are already generally overburdened and under-resourced compared to the federal courts) - A Second Chance is just not a good book. Which is all the more frustrating because it could have been! And the time is ripe for a good book on the FSA.
If I could wave a magic wand and create my ideal book about the FSA, I would use the same general structure that A Second Chance doesn't quite pull off. I would get four to six federal judges contributing, each writing about one or two cases. The first section would include, for each case, the broad strokes of the defendant's life history, the crime itself, the trial (or plea), and the original sentence, as well as the defendant's behavior in prison, medical condition, and any other considerations that made it into the motion to reduce the sentence, so that the reader would have all the information needed to consider how they would have responded to the motion as they read the second section, which, as here, would discuss the history and application of the FSA. In the third section, the judges would discuss how they responded to the motions and why; I think having multiple judges involved would give a better picture of how judges in general tend to approach FSA cases, rather than seeing only one perspective. Unfortunately, I doubt such a book will ever be written.
My Rating: ★★☆☆☆
David Lat recommended A Second Chance as an "engaging and enlightening new book" about the First Step Act (FSA). Unfortunately, I have to assume he didn't read the book in its entirety before describing it that way.
I went into this book wanting and expecting to like it, and not only because of Lat's recommendation. The topic is right up my alley, as I'm interested in the FSA (although it's federal rather than state law, so I don't work with it myself) and in sentencing more generally. The structure seemed interesting: It's built around six actual motions for sentence reduction under the FSA that Block received. The first section of the book has a description of each case, the second section discusses the FSA generally, and in the third section Block explains how he ruled on each motion and why. The idea is that as you read about how the FSA works, you can be thinking about how you would handle each case, and then compare that to what Block actually did.
But here we come to the first disappointment! The first section includes an overview of the crimes committed and sentences received in the original cases, but it does not include any discussion of each defendant's behavior in prison after their sentencing, or other factors not related to the original case that would suggest that their sentences should be reduced. Those factors aren't discussed until the third section, and that makes it impossible to actually apply the FSA analysis to the cases yourself, because the FSA requires that sentence reduction be based on "extraordinary and compelling circumstances," not merely on the present court's disagreement with the prior sentence. Without information about anything after the original sentence, the whole cool structural conceit of the book is out the window.
Overall, this book badly needed a better editor. In addition to the structural issue discussed above, there are various digressions that seem out of place and break the flow of the book. (And a reference to "our schizoid gun and drug laws" in the epilogue should have been caught and rewritten to get the point across in less offensive language.)
One error in particular actually makes me wonder if Block used a ghostwriter who isn't a lawyer: At one point the book refers to the possibility of a jury "finding [someone] innocent." Anyone who knows anything about criminal law will tell you that juries do not make findings of innocence! A verdict of not guilty is not an affirmative finding of innocence, only that the defendant's guilt was not proven beyond a reasonable doubt. A jury can and should return a verdict of not guilty even if every single person on the jury thinks the defendant probably committed the crime, as long as there is reasonable doubt about the defendant's guilt! A finding of innocence is a separate thing, which occurs when a convicted defendant's innocence is subsequently proven to a judge by clear and convincing evidence.
There are also moments that cause me to question Judge Block's assessment of his readers' common sense. For example, in a discussion of the collateral consequences of a felony conviction, Block finishes off a list of such consequences with "if [the defendant] were a bingo devotee, she could not even receive a bingo operator’s license," presenting the restriction as self-evidently absurd. But if I, who have been practicing criminal law for less than two years, can recognize the obvious reason the state would wish to restrict convicted felons from operating legal gambling establishments - legal gambling being naturally often connected to illegal gambling, which is also frequently intertwined with organized crime - then Judge Block, who has been on the bench since before I was even born, should certainly be able to recognize it!
All in all, while I do agree with many of Block's policy arguments - I support the FSA, and I also support potential expansions of compassionate release at the state level, along the lines of what Block urges (although I wish he'd addressed the strain on state court systems, which are already generally overburdened and under-resourced compared to the federal courts) - A Second Chance is just not a good book. Which is all the more frustrating because it could have been! And the time is ripe for a good book on the FSA.
If I could wave a magic wand and create my ideal book about the FSA, I would use the same general structure that A Second Chance doesn't quite pull off. I would get four to six federal judges contributing, each writing about one or two cases. The first section would include, for each case, the broad strokes of the defendant's life history, the crime itself, the trial (or plea), and the original sentence, as well as the defendant's behavior in prison, medical condition, and any other considerations that made it into the motion to reduce the sentence, so that the reader would have all the information needed to consider how they would have responded to the motion as they read the second section, which, as here, would discuss the history and application of the FSA. In the third section, the judges would discuss how they responded to the motions and why; I think having multiple judges involved would give a better picture of how judges in general tend to approach FSA cases, rather than seeing only one perspective. Unfortunately, I doubt such a book will ever be written.
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It's terribly disappointing when a book has promise and then is failed by its own haphazard structure. I must say that I did enjoy reading your critique of it, though.
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A bad book haunted by the ghost of the good book it could have been. (Thanks, haha!)