Chutzph Dershowitz essays

Chutzph Dershowitz essays In Alan Dershowitz's novel Chutzpah, he devotes an entire section to the issue of, and his personal feelings about James Pollard. He begins this section with a description of the way in which this man was caught selling classified government documents to the nation of Israel. Basically this man was a Jewish American spy for the Israeli government because of a duty he felt stemming from a secret loyalty he felt toward the nation of Israel. Over an extended period of time this man sold thousand of secret documents which in the eyes of Weinberger, the Secretary of Defense for the United States was a Òserious breech in national security.Ó Dershowitz emphasizes in great detail how in order to avoid a trial in which the declassification of these documents would be required, Pollard was pressured to accept a plea bargain in which he would plead guilty, give full disclosure pertaining to the information he handed over, and release all rights to any of his future published material that pertained to the case. In exchange for these things he would be granted a formal request by the US government to the judge of the case which would call for a restricted sentence for him and his wife. Pollard agreed to this deal and was satisfied with it until he received a sentence of life in a maximum security prison and his wife received 5 years in prison. The evidence that Dershowitz presents suggests that Pollard did get an unfair deal, and a much harsher sentence than others in the past have received for similar crimes. Dershowitz st...