Thank you, The New Press, for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Mr. Book just finished A Second Chance: A Federal Judge Decides Who Deserves It by Frederic Block.

The author is a federal court judge who wrote about six individuals who petitioned him to be released from from federal prison. In the first part of the book, there was a chapter on each person’s crimes, followed by a chapter on the federal statute that he asked for release under and then another chapter on each one telling how Judge Block decided.

The six cases were a New York police officer who was guilty of an infamous attack on an innocent man, a man convicted of murder under RICO, someone who downloaded thousands of images of child pornography and several Mafia cases.

In addition to discussing the individual cases, the author gave a history of US drug laws and how they’ve been used to target minorities, discussion of US gun laws and a discussion of threats and violence against federal judges, along with how the situation has gotten much worse thanks to Trump.

This was a fascinating look at the cases, how the judge performed his decision making as well as other aspects of the legal system. I give this book an A. Goodreads and NetGalley require grades on a 1-5 star system. In my personal conversion system, an A equates to 5 stars. (A or A+: 5 stars, B+: 4 stars, B: 3 stars, C: 2 stars, D or F: 1 star).

This review has been posted at NetGalley, Goodreads and my blog, Mr. Book’s Book Reviews

I originally finished reading this on July 16, 2024.