The cadaver king and the country dentist : a true story of injustice in the American South / Radley Balko and Tucker Carrington ; foreword by John Grisham.
2018
KFM7162 .B35 2018 (Mapit)
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Author
Title
The cadaver king and the country dentist : a true story of injustice in the American South / Radley Balko and Tucker Carrington ; foreword by John Grisham.
Edition
First edition.
Imprint
New York, NY : PublicAffairs, [2018]
Copyright
©2018.
Description
xxii, 391 pages ; 25 cm
Formatted Contents Note
Foreword / by John Grisham
The murder of Courtney Smith
The murder of Christine Jackson
Investigating the dead
At the hands of persons unknown
Setting the stage for the Cadaver King
Rise of a fiefdom
The West phenomenon
Entrenchment
The trial of Levon Brooks
Keep that woman under control
Vessels of wrath, fitted for destruction
Prayers for relief
The unraveling
Redemption and insurrection
No reckoning.
The murder of Courtney Smith
The murder of Christine Jackson
Investigating the dead
At the hands of persons unknown
Setting the stage for the Cadaver King
Rise of a fiefdom
The West phenomenon
Entrenchment
The trial of Levon Brooks
Keep that woman under control
Vessels of wrath, fitted for destruction
Prayers for relief
The unraveling
Redemption and insurrection
No reckoning.
Summary
Relates the stories of two innocent men who were wrongly accused and convicted of crimes due largely to the legally condoned failures perpetrated by invalid forensic science and institutional racism. --Publisher.
"A shocking and deeply reported account of the persistent plague of institutional racism and junk forensic science in our criminal justice system, and its devastating effect on innocent lives. After two three-year-old girls were raped and murdered in rural Mississippi, law enforcement pursued and convicted two innocent men: Kennedy Brewer and Levon Brooks. Together they spent a combined thirty years in prison before finally being exonerated in 2008. Meanwhile, the real killer remained free. [This book] recounts the story of how the criminal justice system allowed this to happen, and of how two men, Dr. Steven Hayne and Dr. Michael West, built successful careers on the back of that structure. For nearly two decades, Hayne, a medical examiner, performed the vast majority of Mississippi's autopsies, while his friend Dr. West, a local dentist, pitched himself as a forensic jack-of-all-trades. Together they became the go-to experts for prosecutors and helped put countless Mississippians in prison. But then some of those convictions began to fall apart. Here, Radley Balko and Tucker Carrington tell the haunting story of how the courts and Mississippi's death investigation system--a relic of the Jim Crow era--failed to deliver justice for its citizens. The authors argue that bad forensics, structural racism, and institutional failures are at fault, raising sobering questions about our ability and willingness to address these crucial issues."--Dust jacket.
"A shocking and deeply reported account of the persistent plague of institutional racism and junk forensic science in our criminal justice system, and its devastating effect on innocent lives. After two three-year-old girls were raped and murdered in rural Mississippi, law enforcement pursued and convicted two innocent men: Kennedy Brewer and Levon Brooks. Together they spent a combined thirty years in prison before finally being exonerated in 2008. Meanwhile, the real killer remained free. [This book] recounts the story of how the criminal justice system allowed this to happen, and of how two men, Dr. Steven Hayne and Dr. Michael West, built successful careers on the back of that structure. For nearly two decades, Hayne, a medical examiner, performed the vast majority of Mississippi's autopsies, while his friend Dr. West, a local dentist, pitched himself as a forensic jack-of-all-trades. Together they became the go-to experts for prosecutors and helped put countless Mississippians in prison. But then some of those convictions began to fall apart. Here, Radley Balko and Tucker Carrington tell the haunting story of how the courts and Mississippi's death investigation system--a relic of the Jim Crow era--failed to deliver justice for its citizens. The authors argue that bad forensics, structural racism, and institutional failures are at fault, raising sobering questions about our ability and willingness to address these crucial issues."--Dust jacket.
Note
"February 2018"--Title page verso.
Bibliography, etc. Note
Includes bibliographical references (pages 323-391).
Location
STA
Available in Other Form
Online version: Balko, Radley. Cadaver king and the country dentist. First edition. New York : PublicAffairs, [2017]
Call Number
KFM7162 .B35 2018
Language
English
ISBN
9781610396912 (hardcover)
161039691X (hardcover)
161039691X (hardcover)
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