Stein's "Justice for Sale"

Gary Stein has published Justice for Sale: Graft, Greed, and a Crooked Federal Judge in 1930s Gotham (Blackstone Publishing):

The never-before-told story of Martin T. Manton, a corrupt federal appeals court judge in New York who was convicted in 1939 and sent to prison. From his misconduct, to his co-conspirators, to the sensational prosecution and trial, this is the exhaustively researched account of a discovery that shocked the nation.

Martin T. Manton was a corrupt federal appeals court judge in New York who was convicted in 1939 and sent to prison. At the time, this was a hugely important story: Manton was considered the highest-ranking judge in the United States after the nine Justices of the Supreme Court, and was nearly appointed to that august body in 1922. Yet his story has never been told in book-length form before, and never with the benefit of such exhaustive research. More than just a biography, Justice for Sale examines Manton’s misconduct in the context of the culture of corruption and organized crime that permeated New York City in the first part of the twentieth century. Dozens of others—prominent business executives, leading Wall Street lawyers, accountants, bankers, fixers, con men, another federal judge—participated in Manton’s crimes. The book profiles these unscrupulous and often colorful characters as well. It wasn’t until Manhattan D.A. and future presidential candidate Thomas Dewey’s successful pursuit of Manton, a federal grand jury investigation, and a sensational prosecution and trial in federal court that shocked the nation that Manton and his corrupt schemes were finally brought down.

--Dan Ernst. H/t: JG

That Emoluments Clause Decision

I am pleased to see that Judge Peter J. Messitte's ruling today in District of Columbia v. Donald J. Trump (the DC/MD Emoluments Clause case) draws upon the research of my Georgetown Law colleague John Mikhail in the opinion's substantial discussion of the historical record.  Also, after considering it at length, Judge Messitte also rejected Seth Barrett Tillman’s argument in an amicus brief that the presidency was not covered by the Foreign Emoluments Clause.

Heinzen on Corruption in the USSR

Out recently with Yale University Press is The Art of the Bribe: Corruption under Stalin, 1943-1953 by James Heinzen, Rowan University. The publisher describes the book as the first "archive-based study of official corruption under Stalin and a compelling new look at the textures of everyday Soviet life after World War II": 

In the Soviet Union, bribery was a skill with its own practices and culture. 
James Heinzen’s innovative and compelling study examines corruption under Stalin’s dictatorship in the wake of World War II, focusing on bribery as an enduring and important presence in many areas of Soviet life. Based on extensive research in recently declassified Soviet archives, The Art of the Bribe offers revealing insights into the Soviet state, its system of law and repression, and everyday life during the years of postwar Stalinism.

Praise for the book:

“Corruption could be the most important of all the understudied topics in Soviet history, but James Heinzen has found a way to illuminate this dark terrain with brilliant research. His cogent analysis built upon startling archival finds enlarges the pioneering work of the great Gregory Grossman, and provokes a rethinking of Soviet legal machinery, the state, and the society.”-Stephen Kotkin

“A magnificently researched, archivally based study of bribery and corruption under high Stalinism in the Soviet Union. The analysis is carefully drawn, fully persuasive, and makes an important contribution to the historiography of the Soviet Union and the comparative study of corruption and bribery.”-Norman M. Naimark

“Stunning …. Bribery was not peripheral or alien to the Stalinist command economy but an essential consequence…. Heinzen's study is bigger than its ostensible subject, for it gives a deeply textured view into how Soviet society actually worked.” -Ronald Grigor Suny

“In Stalin’s Russia, where the party ruled every aspect of life, to give or take a bribe was to be human. Heinzen’s fascinating study shows how and why it was done.” -Mark Harrison

"This deeply researched and thoughtful book sheds new light on corruption in the late Stalin years, newly illuminating the limits to Stalin’s power and the Soviet legal system." -Deborah Kaple  

More information is available here.