A Matter of Principle Paperback – Illustrated, 11 Sept. 2012

A complex character. Interesting rrad

The only problem was that if you dont have some knowledge of the world in which Conrad Black operates within then its easy to get lost in all the Jargon and manner in which the business operates. For a layman like myself with a half decent education it was sometimes difficult to follow. Dont be put off buying it though, a good insight into the US justice system (as seen by Black) if nothing else.

I'm still reading the book at the moment its super!

The travails of Alfred Dreyfus (admittedly an inferior writer) were as nothing compared to what the American justice system has inflicted on Conrad Black. His tale of persecution and unjust imprisonment will touch the hearts of decent men and women everywhere long after the books of Aleksander Solzhenitsyn, Anna Akmatova and Andrei Sakharov are forgotten (but sadly perhaps, not before then).Although abandoned and cast out by many of his so-called friends, the author recounts movingly how a few staunch supporters and loyal servants stood by him - the tangible support sent to him and his wife by the Elton Johns is a particularly poignant moment.The few hours of spiritual consolation which Lord Black describes when he can retreat to his private book-lined chapel would surely be enriched by invoking the heart-rending prayer of G Parsons (a man who also came to know something of the meaning of immolation):"In my hour of darkness, in my time of need,O Lord grant me wisdom, O Lord grant me speed."Buy this book - buy it for your servants, buy it for your fellow peers but most of all buy it for the long winter nights when the fire needs feeding.

This must be one of the most tediously boring books I have ever tried to read having had high expectations of an exciting revelatory story. Conrad Black seems to use three words where a real author would only use one and at the same time give a valid impression that he is a living and walking thesaurus.Admittedly there are nuggets within its copious text, but they are so hard to find that I found myself unwilling to finish it, but struggled on. Towards the end the story gets so convoluted that the reader has little chance of understanding who (in Conrad's eyes) are goodies and who are the baddies. There are so many of each and they live in different countries . The book might be more readable if a table of characters and places was included.

I love reading autobiographies and I found this one unusual and interesting.If I am honest, I nearly gave up at around page 50 and then at page 150. It takes a while to get used to Conrad Black's writing style. I would advise the reader to look up YouTube videos of Mr Conrad Black, as it helps to get his voice and his personality in your head when you are reading the book. Mr Conrad Black vocabulary is formidable. I installed a dictionary App on my smartphone and it made it easier to look new words. Thankfully, I was not alone, in reverting to a dictionary.It is a big beast of a book at 600 pages. The book gets very interesting. Conrad Black is very candid about what happened to him and the newspaper companies he ran. How he was charged with a number of charges including 'racketering'. He faced nearly 95 years in prison. How he found not guilty of some charges and guilty of other charges. How e continued to fight and appeal his case.It is brave of Conrad Black to write a book after been into prison.There is also an interesting YouTube video by one of his ex-lawyers "Prosecutorial Misconduct: Attorney Brendan Sullivan Extended Interview", which is worth watching.

I was very disappointed. He seems a marvellous person, but it was just a boring CV of his jobs, businesses and people he's met and worked with that I have never heard of.

Terribly written by a truly obnoxious creature.Don't bother with it.Everything the newspapers said about this arrogant, narcissistic man is true. They should have thrown away the key when they locked him up.

As someone who has always admired the US this book really opened my eyes to the judicial sham in the US. It is mind boggling that this can happen to anyone. Well written and very insightful.

In typical Conrad Black writing style, this book is a rambling lambasting of everyone and everything who he holds responsible for his legal troubles while his Hollinger companies were effectively stolen from his control and bankrupted. Its what you'd expect from someone that feels they've been wronged, defamed and stolen from. He also rightly calls out the US legal and prison system for the disgrace they truly are with plenty of firsthand and well researched evidence to back up claims.Unfortunately, although mostly well written, reading this book is made significantly more difficult due to the fact that its absolutely peppered with a countless number of the most obscure and unpronounceable words imaginable. Its Conrad Black writing so no surprise here, but even the built-in Kindle dictionary didn't have definitions for at many of these words!There is no question that American prosecutors grossly overreached when creating a case against Mr. Black. It was based on no real evidence and in fact on outright falsehoods, this proven by the fact that Conrad's lawyers absolutely destroyed the bulk of the government case against him. By even bringing this case forward, the American legal system proved yet again what a total farce its truly is, unfortunately at Mr. Blacks' and shareholders' great expense.Whether you like him or hate him, he did build a great company and billions in shareholder wealth, and you can't help but admire the fact he battled the American prosecutors and their WILDLY overstated case against him and almost won a near total victory while maintaining his dignity through the whole ugly painful process.

Mr. Black's book is over 500 pages long and I expected it to be a leisurely and long read. It wasn't. I had difficulty putting it down. By writing clearly and candidly, he has done a service to this country and I can only hope that we benefit from it.With good reason, he faults the plea bargain system in American justice. I think it actually works fairly well with the guilty who are probably about 90% or more of those accused. They know they are caught, they expect some punishment, and they have an opportunity to bargain for less. Time and money are saved and people are 'processed' fairly efficiently.For the innocent, the system is a brutal and unjust mulching machine that shreds property, reputations and lives. Prosecutors and judges are actually offended when their their 'bargains' are refused. Vindictive responses often follow, and we have given the state the tools to be very nasty indeed. As Mr. Black so clearly exposes, civil forfeiture of assets and subtle subornation of perjury by using plea bargains as rewards for lying are within reach of an affronted prosecutor. Few of the innocent have the offshore resources and the strength of mind that were available to Mr. Black to stand up to the assault. I suspect some innocents are poleaxed into a stunned inability to act when they discover for the first time in their lives that their government is not going to be honest or fair.Several remedies that can ameliorate but not fully cure the disease come to mind. First and foremost, we need to lower the shield of immunity that protects unethical prosecutors from civil suits against them personally and from criminal prosecution when they go too far. I have heard it argued that it would make them overcautious, and I am sure it will, but I prefer that to the reckless abuse in which some indulge to advance their careers and reputations. Theoretically, bar associations can take action for unethical conduct by attorneys, but it is almost unheard of when prosecutors go over the line. They should do better.Second, the jungle of government regulation needs to be slashed and burned. Nobody is safe in a society so strangled by red tape that he can never know when he is doing wrong even when he acts with the best intentions and an honest will.Two other books touching on the same issue are well worth reading as companions to Mr. Black's book: First, Until Proven Innocent: Political Correctness and the Shameful Injustices of the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case. Taylor and Johnson do a superb job of exposing the shameful conduct of the prosecutor, the police, and Duke University in the Duke Lacrosse case. K.C. Johnson also has a valuable blog' Durham in Wonderland' that addresses these issues. Second, A Wilderness of Error: The Trials of Jeffrey MacDonald which addresses the many problems in the infamous Green Beret Killer case. Both books make sobering reading.For a 'live action' treatment of a problematic case, follow the Zimmerman legal fiasco in Florida. It reminds one of the Duke Lacrosse case in many ways.As a last note, it is worth recalling that in the infamous Salem Witch cases the only people who were hanged were those who, for character, for religion and for principle, refused to say that they were guilty of witchcraft. All of those who confessed to witchcraft and, in terror of their lives denounced others, were spared the noose. I kept remembering that as I read Mr. Black's book. I am grateful for his resourceful will and for his survival.

Unfortunately in today's market, integrity, principle and kindness are at an all time low. This book does an excellent outline of those ideals and how the legal system perpetrates those. Great read.

I have read Mr Black's other books and enjoyed them thoroughly. I began this one to complete my own information about his travails with the American legal system. I have not yet finished it but it has been intriguing enough to cause me to lay aside Amity Schales' new Coolidge. The legal jargon and the numerous persons involved make it heavy going at times. I am neither a lawyer nor a businessman.My only comparison has to be to my own medical malpractice suit. It was the only such suit that made it to court in my 40 years of medical practice. Unlike Mr Black, I had excellent counsel, a man I had known for years, and an excellent, and well known, expert witness for my defense. The plaintiffs were the family of a man who had died after a complex operation. In the event, I warned the hospital administrator that a lawsuit would certainly be filed. I had met the family and the adult children were not a promising bunch. The plaintiff's attorney hired an expert witness whose entire career for many years had been in testifying, not practicing surgery.He claimed that I had done the wrong thing and he would have done otherwise. We asked him to provide the records of a similar case in which he had done what he claimed was the proper care. His response was to state, under oath, that the records had been destroyed in an office fire and his secretary, who could remember the details, had died. The result was a jury verdict in my favor and awarding us our legal costs, which of course were never collected.Such is the situation for anyone who is forced to defend himself in an American courtroom. I am not instinctively hostile to legal cases as I have testified many times in both civil (for both plaintiff and defendant) and criminal cases. In one criminal case, I was asked to lie under oath by the prosecutor (I evaded the question). In another, civil, case I knew that the defense attorney had lied in posing a question to me on cross examination. I offered to have another doctor testify as a rebuttal witness but the somnolent plaintiff attorney declined and lost the case. His client was a well known Hollywood lawyer and, I assumed, was able to decide how much representation he wanted.Sorry to belabor this matter but Mr Black has been exposed to the worst that American jurisprudence has to offer. He also had his troubles with the British, Canadian and US news media but that was to be expected. His politics are conservative and he is rich. Both are anathema to the US media, as Mitt Romney learned at lesser cost to him, but greater cost to us. I look forward to finishing the book although it is a bit of a downer to see how an innocent man can be so abused by our legal system. It is also no wonder why American business is in decline in spite of the brilliance of the productive and entrepreneurial classes of this country.The book is highly recommended and is a cautionary tale as we enter the second term of this president. For someone with no experience with the legal or financial segments of our economy, it may be slow going.Update: I have now finished the book and have spent some time reading some of the reaction to it in various quarters. Mr Black is described as "impenitent." Since he, and I, consider him factually innocent, what exactly has he to be "penitent" about ? My experience with the US legal system is fortunately less extensive than Mr Black's but I do see the problems of excessive litigiousness. A well known law professor has referred to a nation where "everything is a crime" and only prosecutorial discretion saves us from the consequences.As Glenn Reynolds puts it: "Though extensive due process protections apply to the investigation of crimes, and to criminal trials, perhaps the most important part of the criminal process - the decision whether to charge a defendant, and with what - is almost entirely discretionary. Given the plethora of criminal laws and regulations in today's society, this due process gap allows prosecutors to charge almost anyone they take a deep interest in."Mr Black learned this to his cost and I don't blame him a bit for his reaction. Ironically, if the villains in this book have any sense of irony, the attempt to "protect" the minority shareholders has resulted in bankruptcy. They have lost all.The book is well worth the time and effort to digest its message.