Review by Joseph P. Tartaro | Executive Editor
LICENSED TO LIE, by Sidney Powell. ©2014. Published by Brown Books Publishing, Dallas, TX. 438 pages, including source notes. Hard cover, list price $28.95 but less from Internet book sellers.
If you have ever believed news reports about federal trials, you may be in for a shock. This book exposes corruption in the US Department of Justice. It deals with real cases in which federal prosecutors systematically violated the rules in order to gain convictions at any cost.
And these are not minor cases, but ones which dominated the news headlines as they were moving through the courts.
The book begins with the suicide of people who have been unjustly tried and convicted by federal prosecutors who are out to win at all costs, even if it means twisting the facts and hiding exculpatory evidence which would have helped the defendants.
The conviction and later reversal of federal charges against Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska, and then proceeds to other high profile cases, including
Those surrounding the collapse of Enron, such as the collapse of the national accounting firm of Arthur Anderson, and the destruction of Merrill Lynch executives who thought they were doing business in good faith with Enron executives.
The majority of the book focuses on the appeals trial of one key Merrill Lynch executive when the author, Sidney Powell, a former federal attorney herself, is asked to represent him.
If you think the federal judges have the highest courtroom standards to uphold, or that they will reign in the most unscrupulous prosecutors, you’ll be in for some surprises.
This is a book which should open the reader’s eyes to whether the US criminal justice system really lies up to a vaunted reputation for fairness. The clue to the answer is in the title: Licensed to Lie, and it goes into courtroom details that read like a novel but are based on day-to-day courtroom realities.
As at least one federal chief appeals court judge noted: “As citizens of a free society, we all have an important stake in making sure that” the criminal justice continues to live up to its vaunted reputation.
Author attorney Sidney Powell makes the courtroom horrors come to life in a fast paced thriller based on real cases that the reader already knows something about from news reports, but about which he/she will be horrified to learn the truth of what really goes on in federal courtrooms.
No wonder some despairing victims of the system resort to suicide, and fortunately pass away through horrible accidents, like Sen. Stevens.
Caution though: You won’t be a comfortable citizen after your read Licensed to Lie.
