A powerful and infuriating must-read about ineptitude and injustice in America’s legal system.
Ten cases of egregious miscarriages of justice and their aftermaths.
Bestselling novelist Grisham teams up with McCloskey, the founder of an organization that works to free the wrongfully convicted, to spotlight 10 cases in which innocent people were falsely accused of a crime, went through trials marked by various sorts of bias and misconduct, and were unjustly incarcerated. Grisham and McCloskey alternate the book’s 10 chapters to show guiltless suspects being victimized by corrupt police officers and detectives, dishonest government officials, racist and/or unsympathetic jurors, untrustworthy witnesses, incompetent doctors, and underprepared lawyers. Grisham’s cases include the story of the Norfolk Four, Navy sailors browbeaten by detectives into confessing to a rape/murder in 1997, and the ordeal of three men convicted of killing a 70-year-old woman, based on the testimony of a police informant saving himself from doing time and despite all three being exonerated by DNA testing. McCloskey’s chapters profile individuals he has worked with, among them Clarence Brandley, a Black janitor convicted by an all-white jury of murdering a white 16-year-old volleyball player; and Ellen Reasonover, a witness who became a suspect in the murder of a gas station attendant when the police basically pressured two women to testify that she had confessed to them. Many of these cases were brought in front of judges based on police hunches, which they buttressed by manipulating uneducated and impressionable witnesses and defendants, suppressing evidence, and in some cases coercing confessions. The list of perpetuated wrongs is endless, and the co-authors are empathetic to the plight of people who had nothing to do with the crimes they were accused of committing. The truth eventually came out in these cases, but that does little to lessen the impact of this sobering look at what happens when we turn a blind eye to injustice.
A powerful and infuriating must-read about ineptitude and injustice in America’s legal system.Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2024
ISBN: 9780385550444
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2024
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorker staff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change.
Artist and activist Vaid-Menon demonstrates how the normativity of the gender binary represses creativity and inflicts physical and emotional violence.
The author, whose parents emigrated from India, writes about how enforcement of the gender binary begins before birth and affects people in all stages of life, with people of color being especially vulnerable due to Western conceptions of gender as binary. Gender assignments create a narrative for how a person should behave, what they are allowed to like or wear, and how they express themself. Punishment of nonconformity leads to an inseparable link between gender and shame. Vaid-Menon challenges familiar arguments against gender nonconformity, breaking them down into four categories—dismissal, inconvenience, biology, and the slippery slope (fear of the consequences of acceptance). Headers in bold font create an accessible navigation experience from one analysis to the next. The prose maintains a conversational tone that feels as intimate and vulnerable as talking with a best friend. At the same time, the author's turns of phrase in moments of deep insight ring with precision and poetry. In one reflection, they write, “the most lethal part of the human body is not the fist; it is the eye. What people see and how people see it has everything to do with power.” While this short essay speaks honestly of pain and injustice, it concludes with encouragement and an invitation into a future that celebrates transformation.
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change. (writing prompt) (Nonfiction. 14-adult)Pub Date: June 2, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-09465-5
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
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