The Last Lawyer: The Fight to Save Death Row Inmates

by John Temple

Overview

The story of a tireless legal Samaritan and his warfare on the injustice of capital punishment

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781604733563
Publisher:	University Press of Mississippi
Publication date:	02/26/2010
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	224
File size:	523 KB

About the Author

John Temple is author of Deadhouse: Life in a Coroner's Office, published by University Press of Mississippi. His book American Pain was named a "Best Book of 2015" in the True Crime category by Suspense Magazine. He is associate professor of journalism at the Reed College of Media at West Virginia University. Prior to teaching, Temple was a newspaper reporter in Pittsburgh, Greensboro, and Tampa. More information about Temple and his books can be found at www.johntemplebooks.com.
John Temple is author of The Last Lawyer: The Fight to Save Death Row Inmates and Deadhouse: Life in a Coroner's Office, both published by University Press of Mississippi. His book American Pain was named a "Best Book of 2015" in the True Crime category by Suspense Magazine. He is associate professor of journalism at the Reed College of Media at West Virginia University. Prior to teaching, Temple was a newspaper reporter in Pittsburgh, Greensboro, and Tampa. More information about Temple and his books can be found at www.johntemplebooks.com.

What People are Saying About This

Leonard Pitts Jr.

"John Temple's The Last Lawyer is a compulsively readable indictment of a fatally flawed system. It reads like first-class legal fiction, but it's far more compelling because it is, tragically, legal fact."--(Leonard Pitts, Jr., Pulitzer Prize-winning syndicated columnist for the Miami Herald and author of the novel, Before I Forget)

Editorial Reviews

Starred Review.

For years, lawyer Ken Rose has fought to save wrongly-condemned prisoners; chronicling the story of Rose and death row inmate Bo Jones, author Temple (Dollhouse: Life in a Coroner's Office) finds high drama in Raleigh penitentiaries, North Carolina backroads, cramped law offices, and sweltering courtrooms. Investigators, criminals, judges, witnesses, and attorneys are all finely, vividly drawn in this disturbing account of a justice system hijacked by officials whose prime interest is finding criminals to execute: "Even if Bo Jones wasn't one of the worst of the worst, they pursued him because he was one of the ones they could get." Reviewing the original 1987 murder, the consequent trials and endless hearings, Temple creates an intimate portrait of Rose and his Center for Death Penalty Litigation as they trudge through a decade of work on this case, a typical example that pits the odds and public opinion against them: "To question capital punishment was to appear soft on crime... In court, one well known district attorney sported a golden lapel pin shaped like a hangman's noose." Ultimately, Temple's account is a stand-up-and cheer account of one man standing up for justice.
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Publishers Weekly

"For years, lawyer Ken Rose has fought to save wrongly-condemned prisoners; chronicling the story of Rose and death row inmate Bo Jones, author Temple (Deadhouse: Life in a Coroner's Office) finds high drama in Raleigh penitentiaries, North Carolina backroads, cramped law offices, and sweltering courtrooms. Reviewing the original 1987 murder, the consequent trials and endless hearings, Temple creates an intimate portrait of Rose and his Center for Death Penalty Litigation as they trudge through a decade of work on this case, a typical example that pits the odds and public opinion against them: 'To question capital punishment was to appear soft on crime. . . In court, one well-known district attorney sported a golden lapel pin shaped like a hangman's noose.' Ultimately, Temple's account is a stand-up-and-cheer account of one man standing up for justice."

—Publishers Weekly, starred review

"John Temple's The Last Lawyer is a compulsively readable indictment of a fatally flawed system. It reads like first-class legal fiction, but it's far more compelling because it is, tragically, legal fact."

—Leonard Pitts, Jr., Pulitzer Prize-winning syndicated columnist for the Miami Herald and author of the novel, Before I Forget

From the Publisher