The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town
by:
John Grisham (author)
John Grisham’s first work of nonfiction, an exploration of small town justice gone terribly awry, is his most extraordinary legal thriller yet.In the major league draft of 1971, the first player chosen from the State of Oklahoma was Ron Williamson. When he signed with the Oakland A’s, he said...
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John Grisham’s first work of nonfiction, an exploration of small town justice gone terribly awry, is his most extraordinary legal thriller yet.In the major league draft of 1971, the first player chosen from the State of Oklahoma was Ron Williamson. When he signed with the Oakland A’s, he said goodbye to his hometown of Ada and left to pursue his dreams of big league glory.Six years later he was back, his dreams broken by a bad arm and bad habits—drinking, drugs, and women. He began to show signs of mental illness. Unable to keep a job, he moved in with his mother and slept twenty hours a day on her sofa.In 1982, a 21-year-old cocktail waitress in Ada named Debra Sue Carter was raped and murdered, and for five years the police could not solve the crime. For reasons that were never clear, they suspected Ron Williamson and his friend Dennis Fritz. The two were finally arrested in 1987 and charged with capital murder.With no physical evidence, the prosecution’s case was built on junk science and the testimony of jailhouse snitches and convicts. Dennis Fritz was found guilty and given a life sentence. Ron Williamson was sent to death row.If you believe that in America you are innocent until proven guilty, this book will shock you. If you believe in the death penalty, this book will disturb you. If you believe the criminal justice system is fair, this book will infuriate you.
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Format: hardcover
ISBN:
9780385517232 (0385517238)
ASIN: 385517238
Publish date: October 10th 2006
Publisher: Doubleday
Pages no: 360
Edition language: English
Link to full review below! Good, but struggled to stay focused and got very tangental at times, distracting the reader from the main case of the story. See full review on The Book Disciple
The best Grisham novel in years. As a criminal defense myself, I am interested in reading of miscarriages of justice. My father in law on the other hand is a retired police officer and he simply found the book to be distasteful. In my practice I have found that most people do not believe that peopl...
If you have any illusions about the criminal justice system and want to keep them, don't read this book.Grisham writes a compelling story. His legal background provides him with the knowledge to understand the legal complexities, his writing skills enable him to weave all the details together into ...
a used book selection. I don't really read alot of Grisham, but thought that its description of a true-to-life that reads like a novel sounded interesting like, In Cold Blood?Nope.
A valuable exposéBy now, there is no excuse for starting to read this book believing that it is written to Grisham's usual formula. This is not a brilliantly written legal thriller. It is an excellent piece of investigative journalism, and it is very clear that John Grisham has invested a huge amoun...