Impediments to Justice

Lois Forer’s Criminals and Victims is a triumph of clear thinking. The author is a judge in Philadelphia’s Court of Common Pleas, and she discusses law and order, the rights of defendants, the rights of victims—topics dear to the hearts of liberals and conservatives alike—managing through it all to eschew the cant common to both political factions.

Judge Forer is concerned with how present judicial practices fail the participants in criminal cases. Her bookR...