AI Summary
5 min readIn 1970s Chicago, a young prosecutor named Randy Barnett—who would later become one of the nation’s preeminent constitutional law scholars—stood in a cramped courtroom watching a judge throw out a major chop shop case. The judge had deviated from his own standard practice to let the defendant walk. Barnett and his partner knew immediately what they were seeing: the judge was corrupt. The defense lawyer had bought him. And there was nothing they could do about it except learn to work around it. That moment, and dozens like it, became the raw material for Barnett’s new book, Felony Review: Tales of True Crime and Corruption, which recounts his years as a Cook County assistant state’s attorney in the 1970s and 80s.
Why a Future Constitutional Scholar Became a Street-Level Prosecutor
Barnett’s path to the prosecutor’s office was unusual. He graduated from Harvard Law School, where the institutional pressure was to pursue big law or a clerkship. Classmates told him that becoming a county prosecutor would be “wasting your degree.” Barnett rejected that framing. “I went to law school to do what I want to do,” he says. “I came to Harvard so I could do what I want to do, not what I don’t want to do.”
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What you'll learn
- 1 (03:45) **Why a Top Constitutional Scholar Became a Prosecutor** - Randy Barnett explains how the TV show "The Defenders" inspired him to become a lawyer, and why he chose prosecution over defense.
- 2 (09:56) **Choosing "Real" Prosecution and Confronting Systemic Corruption** - Barnett discusses his motivation to be a "real prosecutor" in the high-crime Cook County system and his awareness of the surrounding corruption.
- 3 (12:52) **The "Dollars Devine" Chop Shop Case** - A detailed account of the first time Barnett and his partner discovered a judge was corrupt, involving a mob-linked chop shop case.
- 4 (19:06) **Staying Straight in a Crooked System** - Barnett explains the practical and ethical decisions required to remain an honest prosecutor when surrounded by corrupt judges and cops.
- 5 (20:56) **What is Felony Review? The "Original Innocence Project"** - Barnett defines the unique Chicago Felony Review unit, a 24/7 system where prosecutors evaluate cases before charges are filed.
- 6 (23:59) **The Prosecutor's Job in the Police Station: Anticipating the Defense** - Barnett describes his core strategy in Felony Review: thinking like a defense attorney to strengthen cases before they go to trial.
- 7 (27:17) **The Value of Seeing Crime Scenes and "Hazing" by Cops** - Barnett explains how being on the ground in Felony Review gave him a visceral understanding of cases that most prosecutors never get.
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Show Notes
Randy Barnett is one of the most influential legal scholars in America. But before he was a professor, he was a prosecutor in Cook County, Illinois during the days that made Chicago corruption infamous. He discusses his new book, Felony Review, which tells the shocking tale of Chicago corruption through the eyes of a young prosecutor.
Note from Brett: This is the best book we've had the opportunity to discuss on the podcast. Buy it at the link below. You'll love it.
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