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Synopsis
Acclaimed Constitutional scholar Randy E. Barnett offers a vivid, behind-the-scenes account of the years he spent as a young prosecutor during the rampant violence and corruption of 1970s and 80s Chicago in his new book, Felony Review: Tales of True Crime and Corruption (March 17, 2026, Encounter Books). Perfect for true crime lovers, lawyers, and law students, Felony Review is a bracing firsthand account of the realities of big-city justice, from one of our country’s greatest legal minds culminating to Operation Greylord, the biggest FBI crime busts in the US. Featuring a foreword by famed Harvard law professor and criminal defense attorney, Alan Dershowitz, who writes “entertaining . . . reads like a television reality series.”
In Felony Review, Barnett recounts the murder investigations, grisly police station confessions, legal corruption, courtroom tactics, and moral dilemmas he faced while rising through to ranks from chaotic misdemeanor courts, to the city’s pioneering Felony Review Unit, to the felony trial courts. With his signature sharp insight, he reflects on why guilty suspects confess without coercion; how to maintain integrity while working with corrupt colleagues; and how to cultivate the right mentors; and the mistakes he made along the way.
The perfect read for aspirational lawyers or anyone seeking an insider understanding of what the criminal system is really like, Barnett’s candid wisdom proves why being a real prosecutor is better than TV.
Author Bio
Randy E. Barnett is the Patrick Hotung Professor of Constitutional Law at the Georgetown University Law Center, where he teaches constitutional law and contracts, and is the Faculty Director of the Georgetown Center for the Constitution . After graduating from Northwestern University and Harvard Law School, he tried many felony cases as a prosecutor in the Cook County States’ Attorney’s Office in Chicago. A recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in Constitutional Studies, Professor Barnett has been a visiting professor at Penn, Northwestern and Harvard Law School. Professor Barnett’s publications include thirteen books, more than two hundred articles and reviews, as well as numerous op-eds. In 2004, he argued the medical marijuana case of Gonzalez v. Raich before the U.S. Supreme Court. In 2012, he was one of the lawyers representing the National Federation of Independent Business in its constitutional challenge to the Affordable Care Act. He appeared on PBS’s Constitution USA with Peter Sagal; and he portrayed a prosecutor in the 2010 science-fiction feature film, InAlienable.
