Batista is a 1970 graduate of Bowdoin College, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and a 1974 graduate of Cornell Law School.

Batista is the author of the critically acclaimed novel Death's Witness, published in 2006. His other books include Civil RICO (Wolters Kluwer/Aspen), a treatise, the first edition of which was published in 1987. Civil RICO is now in its third edition.

Since 1991, Batista has been a regular Guest Commentator on legal and other subjects on Court TV and CNN, among other national networks. His articles have appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The National Law Journal, among others. He is also a widely published poet whose work has appeared in literary magazines such as The Atlanta Review, Poetry International, Press, and Pegasus.

Batista, whose son Aaron is a professor at the University of Pittsburgh and whose daughter attends a private school in New England, lives in New York City and Sag Harbor, New York.He is a veteran of the United States Army.