Vol. 36 No. 02 (September 2026) PP. 20-22
FELONY REVIEW: TALES OF TRUE CRIME AND CORRUPTION IN CHICAGO, by Randy E. Barnett. New York: Encounter Books, 2026. 200pp. Cloth $29.99. ISBN: 978-1641774956.
Reviewed by Ralph Weisheit, Department of Criminal Justice, Illinois State University, Email: raweish@ilstu.edu.
True crime has developed a cult following. There are fan conventions and journalists who bring those stories to life. Gruesome crimes and official corruption, for which Chicago has a long reputation, can be found in this book. However, that’s not its primary focus. Rather, the book is about the author’s entrance into and movement up through the ranks of prosecutors in Cook County (IL) between 1977 and 1981. This was a time when violent crime and official corruption were particularly common in Cook County. His experience as a law clerk while in law school allowed him to skip the assignment given to most new prosecutors – traffic court, juvenile court, or appeals. Instead, he began work as a prosecutor in misdemeanor court. Only there for four months, his experience in misdemeanor court under an honest, no nonsense judge impressed upon him the importance of being ethical. Next up was misdemeanor jury trial court, where he first experienced working with corrupt judges. From there he was assigned to auto theft court, then preliminary hearing court, and then to the Felony Review Unit. Rising through these layers of the system had its challenges, “The funny thing about rising up through the ranks is that you start an assignment completely lost, eventually catch on to become the master of that particular domain, and then get promoted to another assignment in which you are lost all over again” (p. 24).
In the Felony Review Unit young prosecutors signed off on search warrants before they were presented to a judge and screened cases brought by the police to make sure only those likely to be successfully prosecuted moved forward. Prosecutors in this unit spent most of their time working with police. The Felony Review Unit was housed adjacent to a police station, operated around the clock, assisted in investigations, reviewed warrants, and interviewed witnesses and suspects. Police and prosecutors in Cook County often came from similar backgrounds and the Felony Review Unit enabled Barnett to see things from a police perspective.
Following his nine-month stint in the Felony Review Unit, Barnett moved to felony preliminary hearing court. By this time, he realized that many of the corrupt defense attorneys appearing in court were former prosecutors who profited from knowing which judges were corrupt. His next assignment was in drug court. As a libertarian, he had mixed feelings about prosecuting drug cases, particularly misdemeanor cases. He was able to distance himself from felony drug cases when a special unit was created specifically to handle them. From drug court, Barnett moved to a court that handled preliminary cases of murder and sexual assault. This was his last assignment before he became a prosecutor in felony trial court.
Having worked in the system for two years, the assignment to felony trial court was the pinnacle of his career as a prosecutor. As with every prior assignment, there were levels to move through. He began as third chair, meaning his job was to assemble files, such as police reports, crime lab results, and relevant photos. He soon had the chance to second chair prosecutions and to gain experience with jury trials, which tended to be relatively rare. Near the beginning of his fourth year in the State’s Attorney’s Office, he advanced to first chair in the felony trial court section. As first chair he had to decide which prosecutors were assigned to particular cases and make decisions about plea bargaining. Readers hoping for discussions of specific major crimes and strategies for prosecuting them will find what they are looking for in this section of the book.
After three years in the State’s Attorney’s Office, Barnett was given the chance to lecture at a seminar for attorneys. He loved the experience and decided his next career move would be into academics. For the next year, he continued to gain experience as a prosecutor while seeking teaching positions, taking part-time teaching opportunities as they arose.
Barnett left the prosecutor’s office, first for a research appointment at the University of Chicago, then for a teaching position at the Chicago-Kent College of Law. At the time of publishing this book, he had become the Patrick Horung Professor of Constitutional Law at the Georgetown University Law Center for the Constitution.
Shortly after leaving the State’s Attorney’s office, a federal sting known as Operation Greylord brought charges against a number of corrupt judges and attorneys in Cook County. A former colleague and close friend who he once thought had become corrupt was revealed to be the undercover mole who helped build the case against corrupt officials. A friend he thought had gone bad turned out to be a hero.
Two themes run throughout the book. First is the importance of preparation. When Barnett made mistakes or when things went particularly well it was often because of his level of preparation. The second theme in the book is the importance of being ethical. Perhaps because Barnett was working in Chicago at a troubled time, he repeatedly emphasized the importance of prosecutors behaving ethically. Early on he was influenced by his time in law school while serving as an intern for a prosecutor in Boston. That prosecutor impressed upon him that ethical behavior mattered more than winning at all costs. This was the second major figure in his early career to emphasize ethics. Examples of his commitment to ethical behavior appear throughout the book, along with examples of unethical behavior by others. The book makes it clear that while there were corrupt judges and lawyers, corruption wasn’t universal and that corruption was a path that was chosen, not expected.
There is much in the book that would be useful for anyone considering the practice of criminal law, whether as a prosecutor or as a defense attorney. The Cook County court system was among the largest in the U.S. Despite its size, personal relationships among those who worked in the system still mattered. Judges, defense attorneys, and fellow prosecutors who appeared at one point in his career would show up later in a different part of the system.
While our legal system is adversarial, Barnett never treated defense attorneys as the enemy. He singled out public defenders as deserving respect, particularly praising public defenders who were members of the Murder Task Force.
FELONY REVIEW offers a good window into the day-to-day work of prosecutors in Cook County, Illinois, and to the various layers of the prosecutor’s office. To readers who want to know more, two books add to the picture of how that system works. The first is Kevin Davos’ book, DEFENDING THE DAMNED, about working as a public defender in the Cook County Public Defender’s Office Murder Task Force. Eight of ten people arrested for murder in Cook County are represented by public defenders. The book is about how murder cases are processed by the task force, but it is also about the impact of doing this work on the public defenders. How does one aggressively defend people they find dangerous, people they may not like personally and who may not appreciate their efforts?
A second good companion to FELONY REVIEW is Van Cleve’s book CROOK COUNTY. Her ten-year study of the system focused on how race and income had an impact on offenders and victims caught up in the system. She began as a clerk working in both the prosecutor’s office and the public defender’s office. She followed up that period of observation with surveys of judges, prosecutors and public defenders, along with hours spent court watching. As the author says about her book:
. . . this work assumes the vantage point of court professionals and provides an account of how they see defendants, victims, families, and other consumers of justice. The stories of defendants, victims, and families are the backdrop of this account, but they are omnipresent (xiii).
While DEFENDING THE DAMNED is the story of noble efforts and FELONY REVIEW exposes both the good and the bad, CROOK COUNTY provides a more somber assessment of the system. Much of the author’s focus in CROOK COUNTY is on everyday cases. Taken together, these three books provide a good range of perspectives of the American criminal legal system.
FELONY REVIEW is a worthwhile read. It is conversational in style. Many chapters are short. This gives the reader a regular pause to absorb the points Barnett is making. This often leads the reader to keep going, to read “just one more chapter”, even when they have other things they should be doing. There is one respect in which the writing would have been improved. There are references to movies and television shows that many readers will have never seen, such as The Defenders and Hill Street Blues. The Defenders ended its four-year run in 1965, 61 years before the publication date of this book. The television show Hill Street Blues ended its run in 1987, 39 years before this book was published. Law school students wanting to know about what it’s like being a prosecutor weren’t born when these shows last aired. While the book is about his experiences in the late 70s and early 80s, much of it still rings true. That reality is undercut by including references to shows from the distant past.
REFERENCES:
Davos, Kevin. 2007. DEFENDING THE DAMNED: INSIDE CHICAGO'S COOK COUNTY PUBLIC DEFENDER'S OFFICE. New York, NY: Atria Books.
Van Cleve, Nicole Gonzales. 2016. CROOK COUNTY: RACISM AND INJUSTICE IN AMERICA'S LARGEST CRIMINAL COURT. Stanford, CA: Stanford Law Books.
© Copyright 2026 by author, Ralph Weisheit.
