Great Price The Last Lawyer: The Fight to Save Death Row Inmates

The Last Lawyer: The Fight to Save Death Row Inmates Review

In "The Last Lawyer", author John Temple takes his readers on a compelling journey through the death penalty appellate process. He follows Ken Rose and his fellow attorneys and the investigators at the Center for Death Penalty Litigation (in Durham, NC) as they take on the case of Bo Jones, a former farmhand convicted of murder in 1993 and sentenced to death. In doing so the author weaves a rich story that is as engrossing as the best legal thriller, while at the same time exposing the reader to the often convoluted process of appealing a death penalty case through the state and federal court systems. Mr. Temple does all this in the context of a story that touches on themes of family, career, politics and justice.

While the appeals process can seem hopelessly complicated and drawn out to non-lawyers, the author skillfully integrates the procedural steps taken by the lawyers into the narrative so that the story flows smoothly. As Bo Jones's case winds its way through the court system, the reader is given a realistic picture of the ups and downs faced by the parties as events (sometimes random, sometimes seemingly unjust) propel the case towards its conclusion. While these events play out over the course of several years, Mr. Temple does a masterful job of keeping the story moving so that at no time does the reader feel that events are dragging.

Although the case is recounted through the eyes of Mr. Rose and his colleagues, the author does his best to present the motives of the many other characters we meet: the defendant's attorney at the original trial, the prosecuting attorney, the primary witness, and the state's attorney handling the appeal. Mr. Temple relies on interviews of the parties and notes and recollections of contemporaneous conversations amongst them (unfortunately not all the parties involved were willing to speak with him) and does not "create" details to add color to the story. He provides us with a well-developed sense of the challenges faced by Mr. Rose and his colleagues both in this cases and in their appellate work generally.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and highly recommend it to anyone.

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Product Feature

ISBN13: 9781604733556
Condition: New
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Product Overview

The Last Lawyer is the true, inside story of how an idealistic legal genius and his diverse band of investigators and fellow attorneys fought to overturn a client's final sentence.

Ken Rose has handled more capital appeals cases than almost any other attorney in the United States. The Last Lawyer chronicles Rose's decade-long defense of Bo Jones, a North Carolina farmhand convicted of a 1987 murder. Rose called this his most frustrating case in twenty-five years, and it was one that received scant attention from judges or journalists. The Jones case bares the thorniest issues surrounding capital punishment. Inadequate legal counsel, mental retardation, mental illness, and sketchy witness testimony stymied Jones's original defense. Yet for many years, Rose's advocacy gained no traction, and Bo Jones came within three days of his execution.

The book follows Rose through a decade of setbacks and small triumphs as he gradually unearthed the evidence he hoped would save his client's life. At the same time, Rose also single-handedly built a nonprofit law firm that became a major force in the death penalty debate raging across the South.

The Last Lawyer offers unprecedented access to the inner workings of a capital defense team. Based on four and a half years of behind-the-scenes reporting by a journalism professor and nonfiction author, The Last Lawyer tells the unforgettable story of a lawyer's fight for justice.

WRONGFUL HAWAII DEATH ATTORNEY

Wednesday, August 4, 2010