The Criminal Justice Club: A Career Prosecutor Takes on the Media—and More. Walt Lewis. Montrose, CA: Walbar Books, 2008. 423 pp.
After thirty-two years as a deputy district attorney in Los Angeles County, Walt Lewis traces the crumbling of his “parental and media-influenced liberalism” as his experiences as a prosecutor taught him the “reality” of the criminal justice system. He suggests that due largely to pervasive liberal bias in the media, such understanding is rare, be-longing primarily to members of “The Criminal Justice Club” that gives the book its title.
The “club” consists of the deputy district attorneys, deputy public defenders, private criminal defense attorneys, criminal court judges, and the career criminals who have been through the system many times. The author specifically excludes police officers and most attorneys from club membership since they, like most of society, know little about criminal trials except what they see on television and read in newspapers.
Although the book title suggests a critique of “the media,” what follows is far narrower than that; a more accurate title might have been, “A Career Prosecutor Really, Really Doesn’t Like the Los Angeles Times.” The book is lightly footnoted, and almost half of all citations are to Times stories, editorials, and op-ed pieces.
Lewis offers the Times excerpts to demonstrate how the media mislead “sometimes for their own convenience, sometimes for their own legal protection, sometimes because of their liberal bias, sometimes from ignorance, and sometimes just from carelessness.” In the careless category, he targets familiar copyediting lapses such as misuse of robbed/burglarized, probation/parole, jail/prison, and opening statement/opening argument. To illustrate misleading for legal protection, he cites the then-current Associated Press Stylebook rule calling for use of “innocent” instead of “not guilty” when reporting verdicts.
This is fairly mild criticism, perhaps useful to remind journalism students that it’s necessary to use legal terminology correctly, and that people are paying attention. But a similar discussion of the difference between direct and circumstantial evidence begins as evidence of media legal ignorance, then transforms abruptly into an “especially heinous example of the media misleading the public.”
In that case, one of the few not from Los Angeles, a man on probation was charged in the murder of a Florida girl. Since the man was about $400 behind in payments on his court-imposed fine, the defendant’s probation officer had recommended before the death that his probation should be revoked. The author argues that in his thirty-two years as a prosecutor he never saw probation revoked and a defendant jailed for failure to keep current on a fine or restitution. He adds that to have jailed the defendant for even a few days, Florida prosecutors needed to convince a judge that not only were the payments behind, but also that the man had the ability to pay and refused to do so.
At that point, Lewis writes, “The media were acting like a school of piranha fish,” demanding to know why the man had been out of jail and criticizing the judge who had refused to revoke his probation. The author notes that even the Florida attorney general was interviewed several times about why the parole had not been revoked, but the judge was allowed “to dangle in the wind.” Although the state attorney general seems like an ideal source and getting to him seems like a good effort on the part of the media, his failure to clarify the situation escapes criticism. Instead, the author sees this as “a good example of the media, especially the networks, ganging up and pummeling a totally innocent man, in this case a judge, for their own benefit—to create some drama and controversy by finding someone else to blame.” Nor, he adds, does he expect improvement in such media behavior because public officials such as the judge find it difficult to defend against such attacks, so the media will continue them because they can get away with them.
Even when the media appear to have accurately reported a problem, the author objects when there are no editorial calls for action. He cites multiple Los Angeles Times news stories detailing a decision by Mexico not to extradite to the United States anyone facing a life sentence on murder charges. Then he asks, “Why haven’t the media editorialized about the shamefully easy way Mexican citizens who kill in the United States get away with murder by simply crossing the border back to Mexico?” He implies an answer in a discussion of “liberal media” attacking the motives of politicians who speak out against crime and illegal immigration. Apparently, if the news columns occasionally rise above bias and self-interest to address such topics appropriately, the editorial columns do not.
Less critical and more entertaining are the insider war stories sprinkled randomly throughout the book. In whodunit style, chapter titles include “The Cross-Dressing Defense,” “The Elderly Sex Solicitor,” “The Gypsy Case,” “The Jamaican Switch,” and “The Mail-Room Caper,” the latter featuring the tale of a mail fraud parolee whose parole officer found him a job in the mail room of the Los Angeles County office that sends out welfare checks.
While the book describes significant problems in the criminal justice system, much key documentation is taken from the same newspaper the book accuses of being lost in liberal bias and deliberately misleading readers. Occasionally offering congratulations to the Los Angeles Times and listing instances when that newspaper’s coverage includes errors or omissions seems well short of the title claim, A Career Prosecutor Takes on the Media—and More.
EDWARD G. WESTON
University of Florida