Overview

Murderous mafia capos. The police officer who brutalized Abner Louima. A purveyor of child pornography. These are some of the defendants to have come before US District Court Judge Frederic Block to ask for reductions in their prison sentences. All of them have been found guilty and have already served decades in prison, but under the 2018 First Step Act they are entitled to petition for reconsideration and release. In a rare glimpse behind the bench, Judge Block recounts the cases of six incarcerated people who have done heinous things but have nevertheless petitioned him for their release. He then explains the criteria the First Step Act has spelled out for his consideration. And, in a novel twist, he asks the listener, ""What would you do?"" Judge Block puts us out of our suspense in a third section of the book where he tells us what he did do in each case and why, as he weighs each compassionate release request, evaluating issues ranging from ""the trial tax,"" to sentencing disparities, to judicial incompetence. Finally, Judge Block makes the compelling case that the First Step Act should be extended to state court judges, since state prisons house about ninety percent of those incarcerated. In a book that could be the basis for a new season of Law & Order, Judge Block challenges our ideas about punishment and justice.

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Joe Barrett began his acting career at the age of five in the basement of his family's home in upstate New York. He has gone on to play many stage roles, both on and off-Broadway, and in regional theaters from Los Angeles, Houston, and St. Louis to Washington DC, San Francisco, and Portland, Maine. He has appeared in films and television, both prime time and late night, and in hundreds of television and radio commercials. Joe has narrated over two hundred audiobooks. He has been an Audie Award finalist eight times, and his narration of Gun Church by Reed Farrel Coleman won the 2013 Audie Award for Original Work. AudioFile magazine has granted Joe fourteen Earphones Awards, including for James Salter's All That Is and Donald Katz's Home Fires. Regarding Joe's narration of John Irving's A Prayer For Owen Meany, AudioFile said, ""This moving book comes across like a concerto . . . with a soloist-Owen's voice-rising from the background of an orchestral narration."" Joe is married to actor Andrea Wright, and together they have four very grown children.

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