Crook County
Racism and Injustice in America's Largest Criminal Court
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Narrated by:
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Nicole Gonzalez Van Cleve
About this listen
Americans are slowly waking up to the dire effects of racial profiling, police brutality, and mass incarceration, especially in disadvantaged neighborhoods and communities of color. Crook County bursts open the courthouse doors to reveal a world of punishment determined by race, not offense.
Nicole Gonzalez Van Cleve spent ten years working in and investigating the largest criminal courthouse in the country, Chicago-Cook County, and she takes listeners inside our so-called halls of justice to witness the types of everyday racial abuses that fester within the courts, often in plain sight. We watch white courtroom professionals classify and deliberate on the fates of mostly black and Latino defendants while racial abuse and due process violations are encouraged and even seen as justified. Prosecutors hang out like frat boys in the judges' chambers while the fates of defendants hang in the balance. Public defenders make choices about which defendants they will try to "save" and which they will sacrifice.
Crook County's powerful and at times devastating narratives reveal startling truths about a legal culture steeped in racial abuse. Gonzalez Van Cleve urges all citizens to take a closer look at the way we do justice in America and to hold our arbiters of justice accountable to the highest standards of equality.
©2016 Nicole Gonzalez Van Cleve (P)2023 TantorListeners also enjoyed...
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- How the Supreme Court Empowered the Police and Subverted Civil Rights
- By: Erwin Chemerinsky
- Narrated by: Perry Daniels
- Length: 11 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Presumed Guilty reveals how the Supreme Court allows the perpetuation of racist policing by presuming that suspects, especially people of color, are guilty.
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Required Reading
- By Robert Bragaw on 02-26-23
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Tough Cases
- Judges Tell the Stories of Some of the Hardest Decisions They've Ever Made
- By: Russell F. Canan - editor, Gregory E. Mize - editor, Frederick H. Weisberg - editor
- Narrated by: Isabel Keating, Richard Ferrone
- Length: 11 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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In Tough Cases, judges from different kinds of courts in different parts of the country write about the case that proved most difficult for them to decide. Some of these cases received international attention: the Elián González case in which Judge Jennifer Bailey had to decide whether to return a seven-year-old boy to his father in Cuba after his mother drowned trying to bring the child to the United States, or the Terri Schiavo case in which Judge George Greer had to decide whether to withdraw life support from a woman in a vegetative state over the wishes of her parents.
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Puts being a judge in perspective
- By David Bigelow Stouffer on 01-14-20
By: Russell F. Canan - editor, and others
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Outrage
- The Five Reasons Why O.J. Simpson Got Away with Murder
- By: Vincent Bugliosi
- Narrated by: Joseph Campanella
- Length: 5 hrs and 7 mins
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What went wrong in the O.J. Simpson double-murder trial? Former prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi dares to lay bare the bungling he perceived in the case. Incriminating evidence was never presented and lapses in strategy left prosecutors Marcia Clark and Christopher Darden at a disadvantage. These are just a few of the fatal errors that led to a victory for the defense.
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Rip-off
- By Andrew Kelly on 05-21-19
By: Vincent Bugliosi
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The Assassination of Fred Hampton
- How the FBI and the Chicago Police Murdered a Black Panther
- By: Jeffrey Haas
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 11 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Uncovering a cold-blooded execution at the hands of a conspiring police force, this engaging account relentlessly pursues the murderers of Black Panther Fred Hampton. Documenting the entire 14-year process of bringing the killers to justice, this chronicle also depicts the 18-month court trial in detail. Revealing Hampton himself in a new light, this examination presents him as a dynamic community leader whose dedication to his people and to the truth inspired the young lawyers of the People's Law Office.
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Terrible narrator for a great story!!!
- By D. Rolland on 11-06-20
By: Jeffrey Haas
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The Trial of the Chicago 7: The Official Transcript
- By: Mark L. Levine - editor, George C. McNamee - editor, Daniel Greenberg - editor, and others
- Narrated by: J. K. Simmons, Jeff Daniels, Chris Jackson, and others
- Length: 10 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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In the fall of 1969 eight prominent anti-Vietnam War activists were put on trial for conspiring to riot at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. One of the eight, Black Panther cofounder Bobby Seale, was literally bound and gagged in court by order of the judge, Julius Hoffman, and his case was separated from that of the others.
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Reminiscent of current discourse
- By Stephen Snead on 01-16-21
By: Mark L. Levine - editor, and others
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Conviction
- The Murder Trial That Powered Thurgood Marshall's Fight for Civil Rights
- By: Denver Nicks, John Nicks
- Narrated by: Ron Butler
- Length: 6 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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On New Year's Eve, 1939, a horrific triple murder occurred in rural Oklahoma. Within a matter of days, investigators identified several suspects: convicts who had been at a craps game with one of the victims the night before. Also at the craps game was a young black farmer named W. D. Lyons. Political pressure mounted to find a villain. The governor's representative settled on Lyons, who was arrested, tortured into signing a confession, and tried for the murder. The NAACP's new Legal Defense and Education Fund sent its young chief counsel, Thurgood Marshall, to take part in the trial.
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What a piece of history 💕
- By Private on 01-12-21
By: Denver Nicks, and others
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Gideon's Trumpet
- How One Man, a Poor Prisoner, Took His Case to the Supreme Court - and Changed the Law of the United States
- By: Anthony Lewis
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 7 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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A history of the landmark case of Clarence Earl Gideon's fight for the right to legal counsel.
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best book on the subject
- By J.B. Price on 06-12-18
By: Anthony Lewis
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Fight Back and Win
- My 30-Year Fight Against Injustice and How You Can Win Your Own Battles
- By: Gloria Allred
- Narrated by: Gloria Allred
- Length: 6 hrs and 19 mins
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Fearless lawyer, feminist, activist, television and radio commentator, warrior, advocate, and winner, Gloria Allred is all of these things and more. Voted by her peers as one of the best lawyers in America, and described by Time as "one of the nation's most effective advocates of family rights and feminist causes", Allred has devoted her career to fighting for civil rights across boundaries of gender, race, age, sexual orientation, and social class.
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Amazing book, amazing woman.
- By Hope on 04-05-12
By: Gloria Allred
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Illusion of Justice
- Inside Making a Murderer and America's Broken System
- By: Jerome F. Buting
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 10 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Not since The Thin Blue Line has there been a true-crime saga as engrossing as Making a Murderer. Captivating audiences across demographic lines, it made Steven Avery a household name and thrust defense attorney Jerome F. Buting - and his fight against America's dysfunctional criminal justice system - into the spotlight. In Illusion of Justice, Buting uses the Avery case as a springboard to examine the shaky integrity of our law enforcement and legal systems, which he has witnessed firsthand for nearly four decades.
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Tells it like it is . . .
- By Regan Williams on 11-26-17
By: Jerome F. Buting
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Bending Toward Justice
- The Birmingham Church Bombing That Changed the Course of Civil Rights
- By: Doug Jones, Greg Truman, Rick Bragg - foreword
- Narrated by: Doug Jones
- Length: 15 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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On September 15, 1963, the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, AL, was bombed, killing four young girls. Who were the perpetrators? Due to reluctant witnesses and racial prejudice, the FBI closed the case without any indictments. But as Martin Luther King, Jr., claimed, "the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." Bending Toward Justice is a detailed account of this key moment in our national struggle for equality and the long road to prosecuting those responsible for the tragedy, related by an author who played a major role in the investigation.
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Great piece of History
- By rita on 03-08-19
By: Doug Jones, and others
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Locking Up Our Own
- Crime and Punishment in Black America
- By: James Forman Jr.
- Narrated by: Kevin R. Free
- Length: 8 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Today, Americans are debating our criminal justice system with new urgency. Mass incarceration and aggressive police tactics - and their impact on people of color - are feeding outrage and a consensus that something must be done. But what if we only know half the story? In Locking Up Our Own, the Yale legal scholar and former public defender James Forman Jr. weighs the tragic role that some African Americans themselves played in escalating the war on crime.
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Outstanding Book
- By Andrew on 12-13-17
By: James Forman Jr.
What listeners say about Crook County
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Ava Kramer
- 10-12-23
Worth the read
Extremely powerful research and story. Had to read for my sociology class but don’t regret taking the time to listen at all.
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