Virtual Event: Judge Jed S. Rakoff

Harvard Book Store's virtual event series welcomes JUDGE JED S. RAKOFF—senior judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York—for a discussion of his latest book, Why the Innocent Plead Guilty and the Guilty Go Free: And Other Paradoxes of Our Broken Legal System. He will be joined in conversation by DAVID B. WILKINS, Lester Kissel Professor of Law and Faculty Director of the Center on the Legal Profession at Harvard Law School.

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About Why the Innocent Plead Guilty and the Guilty Go Free

How can we be proud of a system of justice that often pressures the innocent to plead guilty? How can we claim that justice is equal when we imprison thousands of poor Black men for relatively modest crimes but rarely prosecute rich white executives who commit crimes having far greater impact? How can we applaud the Supreme Court’s ever-more-limited view of its duty to combat excesses by the president?

The federal judge Jed S. Rakoff, a leading authority on white-collar crime, explores these and other puzzles in Why the Innocent Plead Guilty and the Guilty Go Free, a startling account of our broken legal system. Grounded in Rakoff’s twenty-four years as a federal trial judge in New York in addition to the many years he worked as a federal prosecutor and criminal defense lawyer, Rakoff ’s assessment of our justice system illuminates some of our most urgent legal, social, and political issues: plea deals and class-action lawsuits, corporate impunity and the death penalty, the perils of eyewitness testimony and forensic science, the war on terror and the expanding reach of the executive branch. A fundamental problem, he reveals, is that the judiciary is constraining its own constitutional powers.

Like few others, Rakoff understands the values that animate the best aspects of our legal system―and has a close-up view of our failure to live up to these ideals. But he sees within this gap great opportunities for practical reform, and a public mandate to make our justice system truly just.

Praise for Why the Innocent Plead Guilty and the Guilty Go Free

“Judge Rakoff’s insightful anatomy of the Nation’s state of justice provides the knowledge and understanding of its fundamental flaws and pathways to reform. Analyzed with the unique experience of a prosecutor, defense attorney, teacher and judge, Judge Rakoff powerfully outlines what’s needed to form a “more perfect union [and] establish justice” in our courtrooms and prosecutorial offices―citizens unafraid to vote for change and fairness as with the First Step Act. Why the Innocent Plead Guilty is a must read for all stakeholders in the American justice system.” —Louis J. Freeh, former Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and United States District Judge for the Southern District of New York

"Judge Jed Rakoff, one of America’s most prolific, informed, and outspoken judges, inside and outside the courtroom, articulately considers many inputs to the judicial process that distort and debase the system in insidious ways. Fortunately, for each unjust and damaging practice he also suggests corrective steps that can lead to a system of true justice. Appealing to science, to citizens, and to legislators and judges he turns what could be a judicial horror story into an optimistic invocation." —Rush D. Holt, former Member of Congress and CEO Emeritus of the American Association for the Advancement of Science

"America has many smart judges, and a few of them are pioneering in their decisions. Of that small number, however, only a handful are so intellectually creative, scientifically literate, and politically subtle as to become nationally renowned. Jed Rakoff, of the influential US District Court of Southern Manhattan, is one of that rare breed. In our national time of troubles, Rakoff’s fascinating Why The Innocent Plead Guilty and the Guilty Go Free could not be more timely or important." —Robert D. Putnam, Professor of Public Policy at Harvard University and author of Bowling Alone and The Upswing