Circumstantial Evidence: Death, Life, and Justice in a Southern Town

by Pete Early and Pete Earley

Book Overview

Pete Earley's The Hot House gave America a riveting, uncompromising look at the nation's most notorious prison--the federal penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kansas--a book that Kirkus Reviews called a... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0553573489
• ISBN13: 9780553573480
• Release Date: August 1996
• Publisher: Bantam
• Length: 512 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 4.2" x 6.9"

Customer Reviews

Couldn't put it down!

This book has SO many twists and turns you won't be able to put it down. It's a true life story that follows a murder in a small Southern town in the 1980s. The town is racist, and a black man gets sentenced to death on circumstantial evidence for the crime. The book doesn't reveal who may have really done the murder until the last few pages! Meanwhile, a million different scenarios are offered by low lifes cutting deals with the police and the D.A. to get out of prison early. All of the scenarios seem plausible, so you spend half the book wondering if this person or that person may have done the murder. Very exciting book. Also reveals the dark side of our justice system.

TRUE LIFE "TOO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD"

The murder occurs in the town that provided the setting for the book "Too Kill a Mockingbird." Earley is an extremely talented writer whose style makes it impossible to put this book aside. It is written in chronological order, which makes it comparable to fiction novels. The story is a tale of police blunders, hidden evidence by the police, lying witnesses and jilted girlfriends. It will make you question the guilt of current death row inmates because district attorney's and cops will commit felonies to win a conviction. I read the book because Ann Rule spoke very highly of his writing ability and she was 100% correct. He is one of the best non-fiction, though he could probably cross over to fiction, writers in the world. The murder remains unsolved, though police think they know who killed her, because of a lack of evidence. Bryan Stevenson has received national honors for his work with death row inmates, McMillan has never regained the small tree business that was lost after his conviction. He does day labor in the same town.None of the police officers were charged since investigation "mistakes" were considered to be "honest mistakes."

Fascinating, Riveting but depressing-----

true life story of a black man unjustly accused and sentenced to die for the murder of a young white woman in a small town in Alabama. I have been through Bay Minette several times and could relate to the environment where the trial occurred. If I didn't know better I would think this case occurred 100 years ago; alas, it did not; I found myself struggling to continue reading the book because of the fact it was so very sad and horrifying. The incompetence, the lies, the coverup, so they could get this poor innocent black man convicted of murder. thank God for men like Mr. Stevenson- I guess my only surprise was that they never found the true killer- one is left to guess who did it, I guess. Does anyone have any update as to if they ever found the killer of these women?

Holes in the Constitution

Circumstantial Evidence is the title Mr. Earley gives to this massive and detailed reconstruction of the murder of a Southern Belle, its shoddy investigation by overly ambitious and politically motivated sheriffs, police officers and state investigators, its prosecution by several racially biased county attorneys, its supposed black perpetrator shanghied onto death row for eight years by this good-old-boy justice, his dedicated defender, Bryan Stevenson, who persists with the case to its eventual overturn through years of repudiated requests for habeas-corpus relief, and all the related characters, noble and outrageous, who inhabit Monroe County and those nearby in rural Alabama. Circumstantial Evidence is a gripping title, perhaps, but not an accurate one. There was really no evidence against the man who was arrested by desperate lawmen after several months of vain effort to find a suspect. As is often the case throughout our country evidence against a "suspect" is artfully created through testimony by known villains whose vengeful and self-serving motives form a sub-plot in this true tale that Earley has skillfully rearranged to read like a fictional case history. Unfortunately, it is not fiction. The case was so egregious that after the denial of one appeal, Stevenson went public and attracted Sixty Minutes to do a feature on the case. This unfavorable publicity seems to be the only prod that forced Alabama officials to take a second look. Even so, they dared hold the falsely accused and condemned man for several weeks after the reversal of his conviction. What the reader will learn here is that the rights supposedly secured for us by our Constitution are chimerical for everyone in many places and at times when politics, economics, and bias supersede the patient search for truth. If the reader was surprised or made indignant by the outcome of the Simpson case, he will find much more here to fuel outrage; the case will, perhaps, lend an insight into why the OJ jury voted as it did. Until such county injustice is rooted out--and doing away with the death penalty would remove much unfair prosecutorial grandstanding from our justice system--we cannot say that the Constitution is realized, nor can we say that the Civil War is over.

Circumstantial Evidence

A Great Novel. Circumstantial Evidence reads as if it is fiction, but sadly it's real life. This book has made me re-think my thoughts of the death penalty. A MUST READ.