Let's Get Free

Radical ideas for changing the justice system, rooted in the real-life experiences of those in overpoliced communities, from the acclaimed former federal prosecutor and author of Chokehold.

“Destined to make us all think in new ways about the concept of justice.” —Henry Louis Gates Jr., Harvard University

Paul Butler was an ambitious federal prosecutor, a Harvard Law grad who gave up his corporate law salary to fight the good fight—until one day he was arrested on the street and charged with a crime he didn't commit.

In a book Harvard Law professor Charles Ogletree calls “a must read,” Butler looks at places where ordinary citizens meet the justice system—as jurors, witnesses, and in encounters with the police—and explores what “doing the right thing” means in a corrupt system.

With groundbreaking and highly controversial arguments—including jury nullification (voting “not guilty” in drug cases as a form of protest), just saying “no” when the police request your permission to search, and refusing to work inside the system as a snitch or a prosecutor—Let’s Get Free is a smart and provocative critique that will change the way you think about crime and punishment in the United States.

“Eye-opening.” —Barbara Ehrenrich, The New York Times

“[A] masterpiece in the literature of American criminal justice.” -Bookforum