THE TOP TEN SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 'A powerful polemic' Sunday Times 'A compelling, eye-opening read' Daily Express – Did an illegal immigrant avoid deportation because he had a cat? – Is the law on the side of the burglar who enters your home? – Are unelected judges ‘enemies of the people’? Most of us think the law is only relevant to criminals, if we even think of it at all. But the law touches every area of our lives: from intimate family matters to the biggest issues in our society. Our unfamiliarity is dangerous because it makes us vulnerable to media spin, political lies and the kind of misinformation that frequently comes from loud-mouthed amateurs and those with vested interests. This 'fake law' allows the powerful and the ignorant to corrupt justice without our knowledge – worse, we risk letting them make us complicit. Thankfully, the Secret Barrister is back to reveal the stupidity, malice and incompetence behind many of the biggest legal stories of recent years. In Fake Law, the Secret Barrister debunks the lies and builds a defence against the abuse of our law, our rights and our democracy that is as entertaining as it is vital.

"We are in difficult times for the protection of our liberties. Nonetheless, citizens are showing an increased willingness to resist the erosion of the U.S. Constitution. . . . Lawson Mack and Kelly stress the importance of not giving up these fundamental rights and conclude with a message of optimism, noting an increased backlash against the administration's more draconian measures. Although the landscape is still quite bleak, change is in the air." -Michael Ratner, President, Center for Constitutional Rights, from the foreword "A compelling and sophisticated critique of the U.S. government's post-9/11 actions. Mack and Kelly set the stage with the historical perspective on America's response to terrorism and the assessment of terrorist threats, before launching into a comprehensive analysis of the USA Patriot Act. Their hard-hitting approach and easy-to-read style makes for a fascinating treatment of the government's legislative and executive response to the attacks." -Michael P. Scharf, Case Western Reserve University School of Law With its sweeping critique of the USA Patriot Act and the Bush administration's maneuvers in pursuit of terrorists, Equal Justice in the Balance is a sobering and exacting look at American legal responses to terrorism, both before and after 9/11. The authors detail wide-ranging and persuasive evidence that American antiterrorism legislation has led to serious infringements of our civil rights. They show us how deviations from our fundamental principles of fairness and justice in times of heightened national anxiety-whether the Red Scare, World War II, or the War on Terrorism-have resulted in overreaction and excess, later requiring apologies and reparations to those victimized by a paranoia-driven justice system. While terrorist attacks-especially on a large scale and on American soil-damage our national pride and sense of security, the authors offer powerful arguments for why we must allow our judicial infrastructure, imperfect as it is, to respond without undue interference from the politics of anger and vengeance.

A distinguished and experienced appellate court judge, Richard A. Posner offers in this new book a unique and, to orthodox legal thinkers, a startling perspective on how judges and justices decide cases. When conventional legal materials enable judges to ascertain the true facts of a case and apply clear pre-existing legal rules to them, Posner argues, they do so straightforwardly; that is the domain of legalist reasoning. However, in non-routine cases, the conventional materials run out and judges are on their own, navigating uncharted seas with equipment consisting of experience, emotions, and often unconscious beliefs. In doing so, they take on a legislative role, though one that is confined by internal and external constraints, such as professional ethics, opinions of respected colleagues, and limitations imposed by other branches of government on freewheeling judicial discretion. Occasional legislators, judges are motivated by political considerations in a broad and sometimes a narrow sense of that term. In that open area, most American judges are legal pragmatists. Legal pragmatism is forward-looking and policy-based. It focuses on the consequences of a decision in both the short and the long term, rather than on its antecedent logic. Legal pragmatism so understood is really just a form of ordinary practical reasoning, rather than some special kind of legal reasoning. Supreme Court justices are uniquely free from the constraints on ordinary judges and uniquely tempted to engage in legislative forms of adjudication. More than any other court, the Supreme Court is best understood as a political court.

In recent years, there has been much controversy about the proper forum in which to prosecute and punish suspected terrorists. Some have endorsed aggressive use of military commissions; others have proposed an entirely new "national security court." However, as the nation strives for a vigorous and effective response to terrorism, we should not lose sight of the important tools that are already at our disposal, nor should we forget the costs and risks of seeking to break new ground by departing from established institutions and practices. As this White Paper shows, the existing criminal justice system has proved successful at handling a large number of important and challenging terrorism prosecutions over the past fifteen years-without sacrificing national security interests, rigorous standards of fairness and due process, or just punishment for those guilty of terrorism-related crimes.