Death by Grand Jury and Other D.C. Stories

Death By Grand Jury And Other D.C. Stories features protagonists who are players in Washington, D.C.’s version of the American criminal justice system. Whether they are defense attorneys, defendants, detectives, witnesses, or student investigators, they are all struggling not so much to seek or provide justice as to make their way through each day with their integrity intact, and without failing those they are responsible for. The stakes are always high: coping with failure, avoiding burnout, conquering an addiction, staying alive, keeping others alive. The stories are set during a spectacularly violent era in D.C.’s history - “the 1980’s through the early 21st century“- yet these characters spend as much time on the streets and in the prisons of their suffering city as they do in the courtroom. They face capable adversaries, work in a landscape littered with pain, and labor in system that often seems indifferent to their efforts. Please note: All stories in this book are works of fiction. They are not accounts of or based upon actual cases.


About the Author


Bruce Clarke practiced criminal law as a defense attorney in Washington, D.C.,, as a partner in the firm Clarke & Graae, and as a staff attorney with the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia (PDS). He later worked for the Federal Judicial Center, eventually becoming Director of the Center’s Education Division. While on sabbatical from the law, Clarke studied script analysis in New York with Stella Adler and began writing plays. His plays include Bluesman (Helen Hayes Nomination, Best New Play, Kennedy Center Front and Center Award, Larry Neale Award for Dramatic Writing) and Fifteen Rounds With Jackson Pollock, produced in D.C. and regionally. He is the recipient of a play wrighting grant from the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities, and was awarded a playwriting residency at the Edward Albee Foundation. He currently teaches creative writing courses in correctional institutions in D.C. and Maryland.