Just Pursuit
eBook - ePub

Just Pursuit

A Black Prosecutor's Fight for Fairness

  1. 272 pages
  2. English
  3. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

Just Pursuit

A Black Prosecutor's Fight for Fairness

About this book

This instant New York Times bestseller offers “a firsthand, eye-opening story of a prosecutor that exposes the devastating criminal punishment system” (Ibram X. Kendi, National Book Award–winning author of How to Be an Antiracist) in this “compelling collection of engaging, well-written, keenly observed vignettes from [Laura Coates’s] years as a lawyer with the US Department of Justice” (The New York Times Book Review).

When Laura Coates joined the Department of Justice as a prosecutor, she wanted to advocate for the most vulnerable among us. But she quickly realized that even with the best intentions, “the pursuit of justice creates injustice.”

Coates’s experiences show that no matter how fair you try to fight, being Black, a woman, and a mother are identities often at odds in the justice system. She and her colleagues face seemingly impossible situations as they teeter between what is right and what is just.

On the front lines of our legal system, Coates saw how Black communities are policed differently; Black cases are prosecuted differently; Black defendants are judged differently. How the court system seems to be the one place where minorities are overrepresented, an unrelenting parade of Black and Brown defendants in numbers that belie their percentage in the population and overfill American prisons. She also witnessed how others in the system either abused power or were abused by it—for example, when an undocumented witness was arrested by ICE, when a white colleague taught Coates how to unfairly interrogate a young Black defendant, or when a judge victim-blamed a young sexual assault survivor based on her courtroom attire.

Through these “searing, eye-opening” (People) scenes from the courtroom, Laura Coates explores the tension between the idealism of the law and the reality of working within the parameters of our flawed legal system, exposing the chasm between what is right and what is lawful.

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Yes, you can access Just Pursuit by Laura Coates in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Social Sciences & Social Science Biographies. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Dedication
  4. Chapter 1: Please Don’t Come Here
  5. Chapter 2: Wanna See Something Funny?
  6. Chapter 3: “I Want No Part of This”
  7. Chapter 4: She Needed Me to Believe Her
  8. Chapter 5: That’s Not Me
  9. Chapter 6: A Seat at the (Right) Table
  10. Chapter 7: Babyface
  11. Chapter 8: There’s Still Time
  12. Chapter 9: Not Their Son, Too
  13. Chapter 10: No One Who Had Been Raped Would Have
  14. Chapter 11: She’s Always Been Such a Good Girl
  15. Chapter 12: Grandstanding for Justice
  16. Chapter 13: “The Chew”
  17. Chapter 14: I Just Don’t Believe in It!
  18. Chapter 15: Chess Pie
  19. Chapter 16: It Didn’t Have to Happen to Me
  20. Conclusion
  21. Acknowledgments
  22. About the Author
  23. Copyright