The crackling discussion goes back and forth between the particular (Was Claus

von Bulow innocent?) and the general (the exclusionary rule, the death penalty, the whole adversary system of justice). Mr. Dershowitz, always good value, is at times breathtakingly candid: "If you start out with the assumption in criminal cases that the vast majority of people charged with crime are guilty, and I certainly start out with that assumption ... and then you follow that with the assumption that the job of the criminal defense lawyer is to do his or her best to present the case for the accused defendant, then, obviously, the criminal defense lawyer's job is not to help bring out the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth; it is by all lawful, proper, and ethical means to limit the truth from coming out, because the truth will sink his client."