Mean Justice
A Town's Terror, A Prosecutor's Power, A Betrayal of Innocence
-
- $24.99
-
- $24.99
Publisher Description
This national bestseller from the Pulitzer Prize-winner catapults readers to the dark side of the justice system with the powerful true story of one man's battle to prove his innocence.
Besieged by murder, rape, and the vilest conspiracies, the all-American town of Bakersfield, California, found its saviors in a band of bold and savvy prosecutors who stepped in to create one of the toughest anti-crime communities in the nation. There was only one problem: many of those who were arrested, tried, and imprisoned were innocent citizens.
In a work as taut and exciting as a suspense novel, Pulitzer Prize-winning author and journalist Edward Humes embarks on a chilling journey to the dark side of the justice system. He reveals the powerful true story of retired high-school principal Pat Dunn's battle to prove his innocence, and how he was the victim of a case tainted by hidden witnesses, concealed evidence, and behind-the-scenes lobbying by powerful politicians. Humes demonstrates how the mean justice dispensed in Bakersfield is part of a growing national trend in which innocence has become the unintended casualty of today's war on crime.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Humes (No Matter How Loud I Shout, etc.), a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, builds his condemnation of police corruption, prosecutorial misconduct and political pandering around an account of the successful prosecution of an apparently innocent man, Patrick Dunn, for murdering his wife in Kern County, Calif. It's a compelling narrative of a horrifying story. In describing the events surrounding the Dunn prosecution, Humes delves into the sordid history of Kern County, exposing a ruthless D.A.'s office, which conducted the equivalent of a modern-day witch hunt. Kern County, the site of many spurious child-molestation and Satanic ritual-abuse cases, emerges as a crossroads where the worst abuses of psychotherapy meet the worst excesses of rabid law-and-order conservatism. Humes recounts how literally dozens of people in Kern County have had their convictions overturned on appeal based on shocking prosecutorial abuses. The evidence assembled strongly suggests that prosecutors frequently knew of the defendants' innocence. As a result, Humes's exhaustive account of the unscrupulous Dunn prosecution makes it difficult to avoid the conclusion that Dunn was innocent. Humes successfully weaves this story into an overall indictment of the criminal justice system by demonstrating the ease with which police, prosecutors and judges can manipulate the process to convict even the innocent.
