In the fiftieth episode of GREAT PODVERSATIONS, author, STEPHEN B. BRIGHT discusses his book, The Fear of Too Much Justice: Race, Poverty, and the Persistence of Inequality in the Criminal Courts, with JAMES FORMAN JR.

Stephen B. Bright is a Harvey L. Karp Visiting Lecturer in Law at Yale and a visiting professor at Georgetown Law. He has tried capital cases in many states, including four successful cases before the United States Supreme Court. He started with the Southern Center for Human Rights in Atlanta in 1982, and was its president and senior counsel from 2006 to 2016. Bright is an inductee of the University of Kentucky Hall of Distinguished Alumni, and he is a Hall of Fame graduate of its College of Law. He is a recipient of the American Bar Association’s Thurgood Marshall Award.

Bright focuses on capital punishment, legal representation for poor people accused of crimes, conditions and practices in prisons and jails, racial discrimination in the criminal courts, and judicial independence. He is the author with former student and Yale Law graduate James Kwak of The Fear of Too Much Justice: Race, Poverty, and the Persistence of Inequality in the Criminal Courts (2023). Best-selling author John Grisham praises: “For forty years Steve Bright has waged hand-to-hand legal combat to protect the poor and innocent, and to expose the truth behind capital punishment, wrongful convictions, corrupt prosecutors, incompetent judges, and all the other bad actors who have ruined our system.”

James Forman Jr. is the J. Skelly Wright Professor of Law at Yale University. He was previously a Public Defender in Washington, D.C. In 1997 he helped start the Maya Angelou School for dropouts and youth who had been arrested. The School’s leadership team dreams of a world in which no person is behind bars; in the meantime, they believe that everyone — including those incarcerated — deserve a high-quality education.

Forman focuses on schools, police, and prisons, particularly in the race and class dimensions. His first book, Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America, was awarded the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction. Forman is a Trustee of the Council on Criminal Justice and a member of the American Law Institute. In 2023, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and the American Philosophical Society. He is the son of renowned civil rights leader James Forman (1928-2005).

The Fear of Too Much Justice: Race, Poverty, and the Persistence of Inequality in the Criminal Courts  by Stephen B. Bright and James Kwak

Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America  by James Forman Jr.

Original air date: 12/8/2023

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