The Trials Of Eroy Brown

In April 1981, two white Texas prison officials died at the hands of a black inmate at the Ellis prison farm near Huntsville. Warden Wallace Pack and farm manager Billy Moore were the highest-ranking Texas prison officials ever to die in the line of duty. The warden was drowned face down in a ditch. The farm manager was shot once in the head with the warden's gun. The man who admitted to killing them, a burglar and robber named Eroy Brown, surrendered meekly, claiming self-defense. In any other era of Texas prison history, Brown's fate would have seemed certain: execution. But in 1980, federal judge William Wayne Justice had issued a sweeping civil rights ruling in which he found that prison officials had systematically and often brutally violated the rights of Texas inmates. In the light of that landmark prison civil rights case, Ruiz v. Estelle, Brown had a chance of being believed. The Trials of Eroy Brown, the first book devoted to Brown's astonishing defense, is based on trial documents, exhibits, and journalistic accounts of Brown's three trials, which ended in his acquittal. Michael Berryhill presents Brown's story in his own words, set against the backdrop of the chilling plantation mentality of Texas prisons. Brown's attorneys—Craig Washington, Bill Habern, and Tim Sloan—undertook heroic strategies to defend him, even when the state refused to pay their fees. The Trials of Eroy Brown tells a landmark story of prison civil rights and the collapse of Jim Crow justice in Texas.

“Berryhill’s account of this infamous 30-year-old murder case . . . Provides a jarring portrait of a once-medieval state prison.” —Publishers Weekly In April 1981, two white Texas prison officials died at the hands of a black inmate at the Ellis prison farm near Huntsville. Warden Wallace Pack and farm manager Billy Moore were the highest-ranking Texas prison officials ever to die in the line of duty. The warden was drowned face down in a ditch. The farm manager was shot once in the head with the warden’s gun. The man who admitted to killing them, a burglar and robber named Eroy Brown, surrendered meekly, claiming self-defense. In any other era of Texas prison history, Brown’s fate would have seemed certain: execution. But in 1980, federal judge William Wayne Justice had issued a sweeping civil rights ruling in which he found that prison officials had systematically and often brutally violated the rights of Texas inmates. In the light of that landmark prison civil rights case, Ruiz v. Estelle, Brown had a chance of being believed. The Trials of Eroy Brown, the first book devoted to Brown’s astonishing defense, is based on trial documents, exhibits, and journalistic accounts of Brown’s three trials, which ended in his acquittal. Michael Berryhill presents Brown’s story in his own words, set against the backdrop of the chilling plantation mentality of Texas prisons. Brown’s attorneys—Craig Washington, Bill Habern, and Tim Sloan—undertook heroic strategies to defend him, even when the state refused to pay their fees. The Trials of Eroy Brown tells a landmark story of prison civil rights and the collapse of Jim Crow justice in Texas.

In November of 1977, Terry Lee Farmer, a white inmate at Arizona State Prison in Florence, walked up to black prisoner Waymond Small in front of sixty witnesses and stabbed him in the heart with a shank. Small had agreed to testify before the state legislature about gang violence inside Arizona State Prison and was murdered the day before his scheduled appearance. This murder proved the catalyst for an all-out war between the State of Arizona and the Aryan Brotherhood. Through five trials, Farmer claimed self-defense and the jurors acquitted all ten of his co-conspirators. Thornton Price, one of the defense attorneys, now tells how Farmer and Small became cannon fodder in this war to reclaim ArizonaÕs prisons from rival gangs. These gangsÑthe Aryan Brotherhood, the Mau Maus, and the Mexican MafiaÑwere suspected of committing more than a dozen murders over the previous two years, motivating politicians to crack down after the violence could no longer be ignored or contained. To reconstruct the case, Price reviewed 16,000 pages of court records and conducted interviews with key participants to piece together an insiderÕs account of the crime and the politics behind its investigation. Prison murders should be easy to solve, but investigators quickly learned that the convictsÕ code of silence makes these cases often impossible to win in court. Price focuses on the special problems posed by prison crime by getting inside the skins of men like murderer Terry "Crazy" Farmer and William "Red Dog" Howard, one of the Florence Eleven and a founder of the Aryan Brotherhood. He also presents the perspectives of state investigators and reveals how they calculated to pit black witnesses against white killers until one black would break the code of silence and provoke feuding within the Brotherhood. Murder Unpunished tells how societyÕs most outrageous criminals ran the prison through gang violence as outside the walls Arizona struggled to outgrow its Wild West past. Like few other books, it reveals how prisons incubate predatory criminals and gangs, and it exposes the unique difficulties of prosecuting prison crimes. It is a gripping account that cuts to the heart of our penal system and a cautionary tale for citizens who prefer to keep prisons out of sight, out of mind.

This book provides a comprehensive introduction to and overview of eco-global criminology. Eco-global criminology refers to a criminological approach that is informed by ecological considerations and by a critical analysis that is global in scale and perspective. Based upon eco-justice conceptions of harm, it focuses on transgressions against environments, non-human species and humans. At the centre of eco-global criminology is analysis of transnational environmental crime. This includes crimes related to pollution (of air, water and land) and crimes against wildlife (including illegal trade in ivory as well as live animals). It also includes those harms that pose threats to the environment more generally (such as global warming). In addressing these issues, the book deals with topics such as the conceptualization of environmental crime or harm, the researching of transnational environmental harm, climate change and social conflict, threats to biodiversity, toxic waste and the transference of harm, prosecution and sentencing of environmental crimes, and environmental victimization and transnational activism. This book argues that analysis of transnational environmental crime needs to incorporate different notions of harm, and that the overarching perspective of eco-global criminology provides the framework for this. Transnational Environmental Crime will be an essential resource for students, academics, policy-makers, environmental managers, police, magistrates and others with a general interest in environmental issues.

Lively autobiographical comics take us through an exploration of queerness and what it means to a woman of color.

In March 2017, Bob Lee--freelance writer, community organizer, social worker, social justice warrior, child of Houston's Fifth Ward and its advocate, former Chicago Black Panther--died at the age of 74. Alongside his larger legacy, he left behind this collection of fourteen stories published in the Houston Chronicle's Sunday Texas Magazine between 1989 and 2000. Framed by journalist and scholar Michael Berryhill, these youthful recollections and tales of his East Texas relatives reveal Lee's shock at learning that his elderly aunt and uncle, who lived in Jasper, Texas, were lifelong Republicans; recount his discovery at the age of 19 that white people, too, could be poor; recall integrating a small-town restaurant with the help of the white rancher who hired him; explore the world of Black longshoremen and offer meditations on the mysteries of death. As he lay suffering from cancer, Lee told Berryhill that he wasn't thinking about dying, but focusing on love. Berryhill, who was Lee's first editor at the Houston Chronicle, has lovingly collected and edited Lee's stories, which are complemented by an introduction and biographical essay. Treasured storyteller Bob Lee's essays offer to readers the experience of Black history in both urban and rural settings by invoking the simple details and events of everyday life.

The Slasher Killings is an excellent account of community and police responses to unusual crimes and shows us how crime can sometimes provoke a deeply disproportionate reaction. A fascinating case study-it is also a very good read.

Alcatraz Screw is a firsthand account from a prison guard’s perspective of some of the most storied years at the infamous U.S. Penitentiary at Alcatraz. George Gregory began his career as a guard for the Federal Bureau of Prisons in 1940. Following his training, he was sent to the federal prison at Sandstone, Minnesota. A few years later he enlisted in the Marine Corps. Badly wounded at Iwo Jima, he returned to Sandstone after a long rehabilitation. When the Bureau of Prisons closed Sandstone in 1947, Gregory was transferred to Alcatraz, which had been a federal penitentiary since 1934. For the next fifteen years, Gregory worked on “The Rock.” He takes the reader along on a correctional officer’s tour of duty, showing what it was like to pull a lonely, tedious night of sentry duty in the Road Tower, or witness illicit transactions in the clothing room, or forcibly quell a riot in the cell blocks. Gregory provides an insider’s account of the tenures of all four of Alcatraz’s wardens and their sometimes contradictory approaches to administering the institution. He knew and regularly interacted with such legendary inmates as Robert Stroud (the Birdman of Alcatraz) and George “Machine Gun” Kelly. Without glamorizing or demonizing either the staff or the convicts, Alcatraz Screw provides a candid portrayal of corruption, drug abuse, and sexual practices, as well as efforts at reform and unrecorded acts of kindness. Various incidents in the memoir convey the fear, hatred, frustration, boredom, and unavoidable tension of being incarcerated. With the inclusion of maps and diagrams of Alcatraz Island, as well as photographs of inmates, officers, and the prison itself, this book offers insight into life at the notorious Alcatraz from an unprecedented perspective.