BLACK RAGE CONFRONTS THE LAW, NEW BOOK FROM NYU PRESS,

TO BE PUBLISHED IN JUNE

(To request a review copy of this book, contact Barbara Jester at (212) 998-6844, or by fax or e-mail.)

In 1971, Paul Harris, author of Black Rage Confronts the Law (320 pages/$26.95, cloth), forthcoming from the New York University Press in June, pioneered the modern version of the "black rage" defense when he successfully defended a young black man charged with armed bank robbery.

Enormously controversial, this defense is frequently dismissed as irresponsible, and nothing less than a harbinger of anarchy – remember the firestorm of protest that resulted when the defense for Colin Ferguson, the gunman who murdered numerous passengers on a New York commuter train, claimed it was considering a black rage defense.

Tracing the origins of the black rage defense back through American history, Harris recreates many of the dramatic trials that have helped define the "environmental hardship" defense. For example, he recounts in vivid detail how Clarence Darrow introduced the notion of an environmental hardship defense in 1925 while defending a black family who shot into a drunken white mob that had encircled their home.

According to Harris, the black rage defense forces us to grapple with questions the criminal court justice system simply does not want to hear. Why does a person commit a crime? What is society’s responsibility for shaping a nonhabitual offender? If societal factors such as class, poverty, and discrimination do shape us, does this in any way mitigate an explosive, uncharacteristic crime of violence? "In a larger sense," Harris says, "the black rage defense educates the judge and jury about society’s role in contributing to the criminal act. It is part of a growing body of recognized criminal defenses that have forced the courts to consider the effects of environmental hardship. The Vietnam Vet Syndrome and post-traumatic stress disorder used to defend veterans scarred by the war in Vietnam and African American teenagers scarred by war in urban America illustrates state-of-mind defenses rooted in social reality. The battered woman defense parallels the black rage defense."

Harris emphasizes that the black rage defense must be enlisted responsibly and selectively. Invoking such a defense in the case of Colin Ferguson would have, he maintains, sent a "superficial, wrong-headed, blame-everything-on-racism" message. Harris also addresses the possibilities of a "white rage" defense and the more recent phenomenon of "cultural defenses." He illustrates how a person’s environment can, and does, affect his or her life and actions, and how even the most rational person can become criminally deranged when bludgeoned into hopelessness by exploitation, racism, and relentless poverty.

Paul Harris worked with the San Francisco Community Law Collective for 16 years, during which time he was described as one of the best criminal defense lawyers in America. A past president of the National Lawyers Guild, he is Charles Garry Professor of Law at New College’s public-interest law school in San Francisco.

To view the NYU Press web site: http://www.nyupress.nyu.edu

5/23/97