Everyone is fascinated by the “big” trials like O.J. Simpson, Casey Anthony, Amanda Knox, Lindsay Lohan, and perhaps soon to come George Zimmerman for gunning down Trayvon Martin.
But it just so happens that some pretty interesting trials have been taking place for over 40 years in a small courtroom. And that small courtroom is in a place few people could point to on a map—Marquette, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. What makes these cases so interesting is not always the subject of the case but how lawyer Thomas P. Casselman has handled them.
Casselman’s book, “I Talk, You Walk: 40 Years of Winning Defense Strategies,” will appeal to those who like reading news about local and/or national trials, enjoy who-done-it books, or watch shows like “Law and Order.”
“I Talk, You Walk” is comprised of a collection of short stories. In the book’s foreword, Casselman writes, “Selecting the funniest, weirdest, and most illuminating cases from over forty years of experience in criminal law in Michigan’s distant, autonomous Upper Peninsula, this is a book that no one else could have written. Each story was suggested by at least one actual case, sharpened and enlivened with fictionalized dialogue between myself and my essential ally, Rhonda Goodwin, private investigator, as well as between other characters.”
Some of the stories begin and end during the three hours of a morning session in federal court; others reflect the emotional ups-and-downs of trials that last for weeks. Local politics, domestic melodrama, racial bias, and townies versus outsider land barons come to a head in the same courtroom you saw in “Anatomy of a Murder” and prove as absorbing and enlightening as any big-city courtroom drama.
Casselman received is BA from the University of Michigan and his law degree from University of Michigan Law School. He is a former member of the State Bar of Michigan Professional and Judicial Ethics Committee and a member of the Marquette County Bar Association and the American Bar Association. He also serves on an attorney discipline panel. He has taught criminal law and procedure at Northern Michigan University and has been an instructor at the Regional Police Academy. Casselman has written articles for the State Bar and has contributed to numerous ICLE (The Institute of Continuing Legal Education) publications. He also lectures for ICLE programs on drunk driving and criminal law and procedure. He is licensed in the Supreme Court of Michigan and in the Supreme Court of the United States of America.
“I Talk, You Walk: 40 Years of Winning Defense Strategies” is his first book for a general audience. Published by Avery Color Studios Inc., the book is available at bookstores and libraries and online at amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com and at averycolorstudios.com; or call 1-800-722-9925.
