Kadri, Sadakat 1964–

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Kadri, Sadakat 1964–

PERSONAL: Born 1964, in London, England. Education: Trinity College, Cambridge, B.A. (honors); Harvard University, L.L.M.

ADDRESSES: Home—London, England. Agent—Derek Johns, A.P. Watt Ltd., 20 John St., London WC1N 2DR, England. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Writer and lawyer. Called to the Bar of England and Wales (Inner Temple), 1989, New York State, 1990, and Malawi, 1995. Tenant of Doughty Street Chambers, London, since 1994.

AWARDS, HONORS: Shiva Naipaul/Spectator prize, 1998, for writing about a trip to Malawi.

WRITINGS:

Prague (travel guide), Globe Pequot Press (Chester, CT), 1991, 2nd edition, 1993.

The Trial: A History, from Socrates to O.J. Simpson, Random House (New York, NY), 2005.

Contributor to journals, newspapers, textbooks, and anthologies.

SIDELIGHTS: Sadakat Kadri has assisted with, prepared, or conducted legal cases in numerous countries, including Brunei, Malawi, Fiji, the United States, and the United Kingdom. His book The Trial: A History, from Socrates to O.J. Simpson draws on this experience, and Kadri's extensive legal background, to explain the history and development of the trial-based system of justice. He is interested not in the practicalities of how various court systems work, but instead in the larger social functions that trials have filled throughout history. To that end, he discusses some of the more ridiculous aspects of medieval justice, including trial by ordeal and the trials of dead people, animals, and inanimate objects, illustrating that the point of a trial is not always to determine if the accused intended to commit a crime or to deter future wrongdoing. Instead, he shows, the deeper social purposes of trials are to make statements about the values of a society (or the values of the rulers of that society) and to satisfy the deep-seated human needs for vengeance and spectacle.

The "analysis of the trial process as a cultural construct," as Gilles Renaud wrote in Library Journal, may be "Kadri's most lasting contribution" in The Trial. Of course, the social factors Kadri discusses can work at cross purposes to the ostensible reason for a trial, creating the infamous "show trial" or "witch hunt," where the accused's right to a fair hearing on his guilt or innocence is subsumed by hysterical demands for the "right" verdict. "This book amply demonstrates the principle that the past eternally rebukes the present," Clive Stafford Smith wrote in New Statesman: "Each generation identifies its preferred villains and dissolves due process in order to convict and vilify them." London Guardian reviewer Joseph O'Neill noted the book's "amusing and colourful and anecdotal" elements, but continued, "Kadri ultimately cannot disguise the fact that he has written a deeply thoughtful book of great contemporary relevance."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, August, 2005, Brendan Driscoll, review of The Trial: A History, from Socrates to O.J. Simpson, p. 1973.

Globe and Mail (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), October 22, 2005, Clayton Ruby, "That's Why They Call Them Trials," p. D21.

Guardian (London, England), April 30, 2005, Joseph O'Neill, review of The Trial.

Library Journal, August 1, 2005, Gilles Renaud, review of The Trial, p. 104.

London Review of Books, July 21, 2005, Stephen Sedley, "From Victim to Suspect," p. 15.

New Statesman, May 9, 2005, Clive Stafford Smith, review of The Trial, p. 65.

Newsweek, June 20, 2005, Tara Pepper, "The Drama of the Court: Exploring the Public's Enduring Fascination with Trials," p. 65.

Publishers Weekly, July 11, 2005, review of The Trial, p. 81.

Spectator, April 30, 2005, John Mortimer, "The Shaky Scales of Justice," p. 40.

Times (London, England), April 9, 2005, Marcel Berlins, "How Do You Plead?," p. 10.

Times Literary Supplement, July 1, 2005, Michael Beloff, "Eternal Triangle?," p. 8.

Washington Post Book World, September 25, 2005, Emily Bazelon, "Justice for All: A British Barrister Sheds Light on the Evolution of How Justice Is Served," p. 4.