Circumstantial Evidence [Hardcover]

Pete Earley (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1, 1995

The best-selling author of The Hot House traces the case of a black man convicted of murdering a white teenaged girl in a small Alabama town, and one lawyer's efforts to prove his innocence. 40,000 first printing. National ad/promo.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

This classic tale of murder and injustice in a small Alabama town has a great cast of characters: a sweet-faced and popular teenaged girl, some bumbling but well-meaning homicide detectives, another teenaged girl who's considered "trailer trash," her identical twin aunts who have bulldog tenacity, a ditzy white woman who likes her weed and her black boyfriends, a racist good-ol'-boy sheriff, a wily raconteur of a con man, three black lawyers with impeccable credentials in civil rights activism, and the stars of the story, a wronged black man and his long-suffering wife. Circumstantial Evidence is an entertaining mystery as well: If you pay close attention, you may guess the solution. As the New York Times writes, "Without preaching, Mr. Earley shows how subtle and overt racism conspired to condemn a man while giving lip service to the legal system's supposed objectivity." Circumstantial Evidence won the 1996 Edgar Award for best fact crime. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

"I wanted to show just how difficult it can be in a death penalty case to discover the truth," declares Earley (The Hot House), and he proves his point with an engrossing, challenging trip into the labyrinth. Monroeville, Ala., was the fictionalized setting of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird; on Nov. 1, 1986, it was the site of the shooting of an 18-year-old white female store clerk; four months later, another white teenager was murdered in Brewton, 36 miles away. A black man, Walter "Johnny D." McMillian, the boyfriend of a white ne'er-do-well associated with the second teenager's family, was implicated in the murders more than three months later, despite a strong alibi and numerous inconsistencies in witnesses' statements. After McMillian was convicted and sentenced to death, the courageous efforts of Bryan Stevenson, a lawyer devoted to death penalty appeals, reopened the investigation, pried clear some obvious lies in the prosecution's case and, with the help of a 60 Minutes broadcast that laid out the appeal, got McMillian freed. The case remains open, but Earley lays out some alternate theories, as well as hints at possible suspects. A memorable tale of the many points where investigations are fallible.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 416 pages
• Publisher: Bantam (August 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553095013
• ISBN-13: 978-0553095012
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 5.9 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #168,526 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Pete Earley is a former Washington Post reporter and a New York Times bestselling author. His book Circumstantial Evidence helped release an unfairly sentenced man and won the Robert F. Kennedy Award for Social Justice and an Edgar(r) Award.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Inside looking out...., March 13, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Circumstantial Evidence: Death, Life, And Justice In A Southern Town (Paperback)

Since I am one of the characters involved I can truly say that Pete Earley captures the events more precise than those of us on the inside looking out. The chilling things he describes are true, and the scary part is they are still happening, everyday. It is a must read for anyone truly interested in how the justice system Really works.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Holes in the Constitution, January 19, 2000

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Circumstantial Evidence: Death, Life, And Justice In A Southern Town (Paperback)

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.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Couldn't put it down!, March 27, 2006

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Hello Kitty Ellen (Appleton, WI) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Circumstantial Evidence: Death, Life, And Justice In A Southern Town (Paperback)

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.