Dean B. Pineles

The intro describes this book more or less as something a grandfather wrote for his grandchildren and the tone is commensurate with both that and the author's profession as a judge. It's mostly dispassionate and impartial, giving fair attention to multiple sides of typical American criminal trials and far more atypical stuff like working with Russian, Georgian (Republic of) and various European (Norwegian, Italian, Kosovar, Albanian) judges and support staff on issues like war crimes and international organ harvesting conspiracies, which in my opinion is by far the craziest thing in the book.

The author's personal story ends rather abruptly after the description of the organ harvesting ring, which I found a bit jarring. Plus there's a bit added in about the role of the Kosovo precedent or lack thereof (Kosovo unilaterally declared independence from Serbia in 1999, which was then used and abused by the Russians in their invasions of South Ossetia/Abkhazia and Crimea) at the end. I suspect the unfinished nature of the last bit is because the current Russian invasion of Ukraine is ongoing and probably occurred late in the publishing process. It's another jarring aspect of the end of the book, at least the version I have, but the idea of a Kosovo precedent that's being abused by the Russians for their own purposes is interesting.… (meer)

I deliberated for a while on how I would review this book, and the conclusion I came to was that Judge Pineles had an excellent story to tell, but the storytelling/writing itself was not as strong.
The author had a fascinating and unusual journey to relate, and his work for international rule of law is admirable, and this is worth reading for that alone.
However, the writing consists of short, perfunctory sentences, without many details. Many anecdotes are abruptly introduced and then discarded after a paragraph, without much to explain why they were included at all. This makes sense, as the style is very much that of a legal brief or judicial order, but it makes for a more strained biographical work.
I did enjoy reading this, and learned quite a bit, especially about EULEX's endeavors in Kososvo. The chapters about the Medicus case and human organ trafficking were in my mind the best parts of the book, as these had the most detail and were written with more passionate opinions and greater life than other portions and I only wish that had transferred to the whole of the book.… (meer)

I enjoyed reading this autobiography of Dean Pineles. He describes his experiences in a long interesting life , first as a lawyer and then as a judge. He first worked in Washington, DC for the Justice Dept, then for the Vermont Attorney General's Office. He then moved on to become Vermont Governor Snelling's legal counsel. From there, he was appointed a Vermont judge by Governor Snelling. After 21 years as a Judge he retired and became a legal advisor in Kazakhstan and Georgia.
He then applied for a Judgeship in Kosovo with the European Rule of Law Mission. He presided over war crimes trials and illegal organ transplants.
Throughout the book, he describes his experiences in a readable manner. I felt like I was having a pleasnt conversation over a meal with this fascinating gentleman. His experiences in dealing with different cultures and languages brought back memories of my 2 months in Bulgaria, on behalf of the UN, as SAM(Sanctions Assistance Monitor), during the Balkan wars. I dealt with not only a foreign language, but a foreign alphabet(Cyrillic) and pit toilets.
I rate this book 4.5 stars rounded down. Thanks to Rootstock Publishing for sending me this book through LibraryThing.… (meer)