Richard S. Platz

Project Divine Wind Richard S. Platz

Project Divine Wind is a cybernetic courtroom thriller flavored with mystery and romance. Attorney Jed LeBaron?s representation of a young black man accused of simple burglary leads him to the federal courts for a determination of whether a self-aware machine, a synthesis of genetic engineering and computer science, is entitled to the basic civil rights of a human being. LeBaron studied in Berkeley in the mid-Sixties and came away with a law degree. But what next? After returning from a long stay under the Mexican sun to mull it over, he finds employment representing criminal defendants in the down and dirty neighborhoods of Oakland. His employer, Cedrick P. Collins, Esq., is a former longshoreman who earned his law degree from correspondence school and is now the most charismatic, elegantly dressed, and silver tongued African American criminal defense lawyer in the Bay Area. Law school never prepared LeBaron for coping with Collins? streetwise clients. This novel contains a realistic look at the underside of the legal justice system based on the author?s own experience.