Demand the Impossible

One Lawyer's Pursuit of Equal Justice for All

By: Robert Tsai

Narrated by: Kaipo Schwab

In Demand the Impossible, Robert L. Tsai traces lawyer Stephen Bright's remarkable career to explore the legal ideas that were central to his relentless pursuit of equal justice. For nearly forty years, Bright led the Southern Center for Human Rights, a nonprofit that provided legal aid to incarcerated people and worked to improve conditions within the justice system. He argued four capital cases before the US Supreme Court—and won each one, despite facing an increasingly hostile bench. With each victory, he brought to light how the law itself had become corrupted by the country's thirst for severe punishment, exposing prosecutorial misconduct, continuing racial inequality, inadequate safeguards for people with intellectual disabilities, and the shameful quality of legal representation for the poor.

Organized around these four major Supreme Court cases, each narrated in vivid and dramatic detail, Tsai's essential account explores the racism built into the criminal justice system and the incredible advancements one lawyer and his committed allies made for equal rights. An electrifying work of legal history, Demand the Impossible reveals how change can be won in even the most challenging times and how seemingly small victories can go on to have outsized effects.

©2024 Robert L. Tsai (P)2024 Tantor

Excellent read

Shockingly contemporaneous. Wonderfully narrated. This is the type of book that should be on school curriculums and adult read lists. It’s imperative that the general population, not just lawyers, be aware of how basic rights and freedoms have been fought for and only granted relatively recently. When we don’t know our history, biases within that history, and the catastrophic consequences, we are bound to repeat them all.