Randy Barnett

"entertaining . . . reads like a television reality series." —Alan Dershowitz, criminal defense attorney Ever wonder what it’s really like to be a criminal prosecutor in a city like Chicago? Felony Review is a vivid, behind-the-scenes account of the years Randy Barnett spent as a young prosecutor in the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office during the late 1970s and early 1980s—an era of violent crime and widespread corruption in the criminal courts of Chicago. With firsthand immediacy and sharp insight, Barnett recounts the murder investigations, grisly police station confessions, courtroom tactics, and moral dilemmas he faced while rising through the ranks from chaotic misdemeanor courts, to the city’s pioneering Felony Review Unit, to the felony trial courts. Along the way, he reflects on why criminals confess to the police; how to maintain your integrity while working within a corrupt system; and why the exclusionary rule, which bars illegally obtained evidence from being used in court, was a good thing but should be replaced. A bracing true-crime narrative told by a prosecutor who went on to become one of the country’s leading legal thinkers, Felony Review brings to life the gritty realities of big-city justice—and shows why being a real prosecutor is better than TV. It is a book for lovers of true crime stories, for lawyers, and for anyone who aspires to be a courtroom lawyer.

A law professor's memoir of his own ascendancy from prosecutor to influential legal thinker.From prosecuting murderers in Chicago, to arguing before the Supreme Court, to authoring more than a dozen books, Georgetown University law professor Randy Barnett has played an integral role in the rise of originalism—the movement to identify, restore, and defend the original meaning of the Constitution. Thanks in part to his efforts, by 2018 a majority of sitting Supreme Court justices self-identified as “originalists.” After writing seminal books on libertarianism and contract law, Barnett pivoted to constitutional law. His mission to restore "the lost Constitution" took him from the schoolhouse to the courthouse, where he argued the medical marijuana case of Gonzeles v. Raich in the Supreme Court—a case now taught to every law student. Later, he devised and spearheaded the constitutional challenge to Obamacare.All this earned him major profiles in such publications as the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and New York Times. Now he recounts his compelling journey from a working-class kid in Calumet City, Illinois to “Washington Power Breaker,” as the Congressional Quarterly Weekly called him.In A Life for Liberty, Barnett writes candidly about his career strategies, and how he overcame his outsider status, his insecurities, and the mistakes he made along the way. The engaging story of his rise from obscurity to one of the most influential thinkers in America is an inspiring how-to guide for anyone seeking real-world advancement of justice and liberty for all.

Foreword by Randy E. BarnettIn 2012, the United States Supreme Court became the centre of the political world. In a dramatic and unexpected 5-4 decision, Chief Justice John Roberts voted on narrow grounds to save the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare. Unprecedented tells the inside story of how the challenge to Obamacare raced across all three branches of government, and narrowly avoided a constitutional collision between the Supreme Court and President Obama. On November 13, 2009, a group of Federalist Society lawyers met in the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C., to devise a legal challenge to the constitutionality of President Obama's legacy",his healthcare reform. It seemed a very long shot, and was dismissed peremptorily by the White House, much of Congress, most legal scholars, and all of the media. Two years later the fight to overturn the Affordable Care Act became a political and legal firestorm. When, finally, the Supreme Court announced its ruling, the judgment was so surprising that two cable news channels misreported it and announced that the Act had been declared unconstitutional. Unprecedented offers unrivaled inside access to how key decisions were made in Washington, based on interviews with over one hundred of the people who lived this journey,including the academics who began the challenge, the attorneys who litigated the case at all levels, and Obama administration attorneys who successfully defended the law. It reads like a political thriller, provides the definitive account of how the Supreme Court almost struck down President Obama's unprecedented" law, and explains what this decision means for the future of the Constitution, the limits on federal power, and the Supreme Court.