Anatomy of Injustice: A Murder Case Gone Wrong
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Bonner, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his foreign correspondence for the New York Times, turns his considerable reportorial gifts to the issue of wrongful conviction as seen through the lens of a particular, outrageously mishandled case. The case, from 1982, centered on the conviction of a young black man for the murder of a white widow in South Carolina. Although the trial dates back decades, Bonner reanimates the wrongs of racism, inept defense, and prosecutorial misconduct seen in this case and also in cases across the U.S. The narrative, which moves through the initial trial and eventual freeing of the convicted prisoner, Edward Lee Elmore, is given a face and a voice through Bonner's focus on the young female lawyer who never gave up on trying to free her client. Far-ranging in its implications, thoughtful, and utterly absorbing, this book is a fine example of involving narrative nonfiction.--Fletcher, Connie Copyright 2010 Booklist

This is a lucid, page-turning account of the trials and death row appeals of Edward Lee Elmore, a quiet and mentally challenged African-American man accused of the brutal murder of an elderly white woman in South Carolina in 1982, and the remarkably dedicated legal team that fought for him to have fair representation in court after three separate, grossly mismanaged jury trials. Led by Diana Holt, a lawyer whose own turbulent youth contributed to a fierce commitment to her client, Elmore's defense winds through nearly three decades of legal maneuverings as suspenseful as the investigation of the mysterious crime itself. Painstakingly researched by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Bonner (Weakness and Deceit: U.S. Policy and El Salvador), the case illustrates in fascinating and wrenching specificity the widely acknowledged inequality and moral failings of the death penalty, while illuminating the less understood details of a criminal justice system deeply compromised by race and class. Indeed, Bonner's ability to succinctly and vividly incorporate the relevant case history and explain the operative legal procedures and principles at work-including the bizarre way in which court-acknowledged innocence is not necessarily enough to spare a life on death row-makes this not only a gripping human story but a first-rate introduction to the more problematic aspects of American criminal law. Agent: Gloria Loomis, Watkins Loomis. (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Bonner (At the Hand of Man: Peril and Hope for Africa's Wildlife) explores a 1982 criminal case in South Carolina involving a murdered white woman and a black defendant, Edward Lee Elmore. Bonner goes to great lengths to navigate a horribly mismanaged case in which the evidence is tenuous at best and the justice system fails everyone involved. Elmore spent 23 years behind bars before being exonerated. As of October 2011, there have been 1,271 executions in the United States since 1976, when the death penalty was reinstated. Currently 34 states have active death penalty statutes, and the issue of the execution of people innocent of the crimes for which they were convicted is a hot topic of debate in today's legal and human rights communities. VERDICT The Death Penalty Information Center reports that in 96 percent of the states where there was a review of race and the death penalty, there was a pattern of either race-of-victim or race-of-defendant discrimination or both. Those interested in human rights, issues of race, and inner workings of the U.S. legal system-not to mention true crime fans-will want to read this book. [See Prepub Alert, 8/12/11.]-Krista Bush, Shelton Public Sch. Lib., CT (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

At the Hand of Man: Peril and Hope for Africa's Wildlife, 1993, etc.) weaves all this together with discussions of pertinent Supreme Court opinions, capsule tales of other, relevant capital cases and sharp mini-portraits of the case's lawyers and judges. A last-minute stay of execution and a 2005 writ of habeas corpus that successfully argued Elmore could not be killed under the Supreme Court's 2002 Atkins decision, prohibiting execution of the mentally retarded, spared him from the electric chair. He remains in prison. A powerfully intimate look at how the justice system works--or doesn't work--in capital cases.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.