Survivor On Death Row

Death Row prisoner kept caged for 34 years for a crime he had never heard of. Date set for his execution - September 15, 2009. A two-hour painful attempt to inject lethal chemicals fails .....and he walks out alive, saying: 'God saved my life, because I'm innocent of this crime.' Now the State of Ohio wants to kill him. Again. His request for a new legal team has been denied. His case is closed. His voice has never been heard .... until now.'Survivor on Death Row' is his own story. "A horrifying story embracing all the evils of the death penalty. Bad forensics, dodgy DNA, awful lawyers, render this a must-read."Jon Snow, Channel 4 News "The Romell Broom case is yet another example of why the United States should abolish the death penalty immediately. The inherent flaws of the capital punishment system are again exposed in all their horror as we are left to ponder how many other individuals will have to go through this nightmare." Rick Halperin, former Chair, Amnesty International USA "I knew that inept doctors could kill you, but I didn't realize that incompetent lawyers can also get you killed."Sister Helen Prejean ('Dead Man Walking') in 'The Death of Innocents' "There has never been a case when the [United States Supreme] court has accepted that the 'mere' fact that a prisoner is innocent should be a constitutional basis for ordering his release." Clive Stafford Smith, OBE, founder of Reprieve, in 'Injustice'

Billy Wayne Sinclair was only twenty-one when sentenced to death. Because of an accidental shooting, he spent the next forty years in prison. When the Supreme Court struck down the death penalty, Billy was re-sentenced to life without parole. Here, he offers a blistering examination of the death penalty and its origins.

William Bernhardt’s powerful series of legal thrillers featuring crusading attorney Ben Kincaid have won him a die-hard following and widespread critical acclaim as a “master of the courtroom drama” (Library Journal). Now, on the heels of his national bestseller Criminal Intent, William Bernhardt returns with his most electrifying novel to date. Oklahoma attorney Ben Kincaid put his reputation on the line when he represented Ray Goldman. The seemingly mild-mannered industrial chemist was charged with a staggeringly brutal crime: the torture and massacre of an entire suburban Tulsa family. But in spite of the grisly, tabloid-ready details of the sensational case, Ben’s deft defense against a lack of hard evidence and improper police procedure made an acquittal all but certain. Until the prosecution’s star witness—the lone survivor of the slaughter—took the stand . . . and sealed Ray Goldman’s fate. Seven years later, Goldman’s date with the death chamber is at hand. But seconds before the lethal injection, an eleventh-hour reprieve halts the execution—and launches Ben on a race against time to overturn Ray Goldman’s conviction. Erin Faulkner, the young woman who narrowly escaped the carnage that claimed her family, has abruptly recanted her testimony, after years of silence desperate to keep an innocent man from dying. Just as suddenly, this near-miraculous turn of events turns tragic: Erin is discovered dead, an apparent suicide. And Ben Kincaid is the only witness to her stunning confession. Ben is certain Erin didn’t commit suicide. She was a victim of murder— silenced by the same killer who butchered her family. All Ben has to do is prove it. But his unseen enemy is determined to cover his tracks once and for all . . . with blood. In Death Row, William Bernhardt ratchets up the suspense quotient to near-heartstopping new levels—and challenges even the most jaded thriller readers to keep up with the twists and turns. Crime will never pay. But crime fiction—served up with the wit, grit, and sheer virtuosity of Bernhardt—always pays off.

Oprah's Book Club Summer 2018 Selection The Instant New York Times Bestseller A powerful, revealing story of hope, love, justice, and the power of reading by a man who spent thirty years on death row for a crime he didn't commit. “An amazing and heartwarming story, it restores our faith in the inherent goodness of humanity.” —Archbishop Desmond Tutu In 1985, Anthony Ray Hinton was arrested and charged with two counts of capital murder in Alabama. Stunned, confused, and only twenty–nine years old, Hinton knew that it was a case of mistaken identity and believed that the truth would prove his innocence and ultimately set him free. But with no money and a different system of justice for a poor black man in the South, Hinton was sentenced to death by electrocution. He spent his first three years on Death Row at Holman State Prison in agonizing silence—full of despair and anger toward all those who had sent an innocent man to his death. But as Hinton realized and accepted his fate, he resolved not only to survive, but find a way to live on Death Row. For the next twenty–seven years he was a beacon—transforming not only his own spirit, but those of his fellow inmates, fifty–four of whom were executed mere feet from his cell. With the help of civil rights attorney and bestselling author of Just Mercy, Bryan Stevenson, Hinton won his release in 2015. With a foreword by Stevenson, The Sun Does Shine is an extraordinary testament to the power of hope sustained through the darkest times. Destined to be a classic memoir of wrongful imprisonment and freedom won, Hinton’s memoir tells his dramatic thirty–year journey and shows how you can take away a man’s freedom, but you can’t take away his imagination, humor, or joy.

On April 19, 1995, Timothy McVeigh detonated a two-ton truck bomb that felled the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people. On June 11, 2001, an unprecedented 242 witnesses watched him die by lethal injection. In the aftermath of the bombings, American public commentary almost immediately turned to “closure” rhetoric. Reporters and audiences alike speculated about whether victim’s family members and survivors could get closure from memorial services, funerals, legislation, monuments, trials, and executions. But what does “closure” really mean for those who survive—or lose loved ones in—traumatic acts? In the wake of such terrifying events, is closure a realistic or appropriate expectation? In Killing McVeigh, Jody Lyneé Madeira uses the Oklahoma City bombing as a case study to explore how family members and other survivors come to terms with mass murder. The book demonstrates the importance of understanding what closure really is before naively asserting it can or has been reached.

Killing Justice in the Lone Star State is a reality check on active Death Row cases (and some post-execution ones). The book offers a fresh perspective for campaigners and reformers which ranges across theory, policy and practice. It also explains the much criticised Texas ‘law of parties.’ ‘A must read, an excellent new book by Mike O’Brien... A powerful critique... a critical comparative analysis of USA/UK human rights standards. Packed with cases. A compelling case for abolition.’-- Dr Michael Naughton, Bristol University, Empowering the Innocent Project. Many organizations are engaged in a race to prevent the execution of death sentenced prisoners in Texas (and elsewhere in the USA). Some men and women on Death Row claim to be completely innocent as described in this book. Michael O’Brien — who was himself wrongly convicted of murder — dissects cases with the eye of someone who has spent years watching how miscarriages of justice happen and why. He explains how practitioners and others are in denial and tunnel vision helps to sustain politicians, livelihoods and profits that depend on a conveyor belt from the courts to the execution chamber. He describes a killing process aided by bias, discrimination, prejudice, unfair trials, supposed expert evidence and closed minds. This is just one hallmark of a country obsessed with guns, violence and the ultimate penalty. Texas is the most punitive place within one of the harshest penal systems in the world. But no legal system should take away human lives, especially one tarnished by defects of the kind the author sets out in this book. Extract ‘Can you just imagine being an individual who is innocent but facing execution, whether in Texas or elsewhere? Or you were on Death Row but you did not take part in any killings, just got caught up in the hysteria? Can you picture the pressure and abject loneliness of serving 15 years or more, and then the State setting a date to kill you?’

NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER • A deep and compassionate novel about a young man who returns to 1940s Cajun country to visit a Black youth on death row for a crime he didn't commit. Together they come to understand the heroism of resisting. "An instant classic." —Chicago Tribune A “majestic, moving novel...an instant classic, a book that will be read, discussed and taught beyond the rest of our lives" (Chicago Tribune), from the critically acclaimed author of A Gathering of Old Men and The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman. "A Lesson Before Dying reconfirms Ernest J. Gaines's position as an important American writer." —Boston Globe "Enormously moving.... Gaines unerringly evokes the place and time about which he writes." —Los Angeles Times “A quietly moving novel [that] takes us back to a place we've been before to impart a lesson for living.” —San Francisco Chronicle