Customer Reviews

The Last Lawyer: The Fight to Save Death Row Inmates

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I just finished reading "The Last Lawyer" last night. I would recommend it to anyone who has not been privy to the lengthy, complex and personal winding road of death penalty appeals and the court proceedings. I agree with Leonard Pitts (one of my favorite syndicated columnist) who, on the book jacket, describes the book as reading "like first-class legal fiction, but it's far more compelling because it is, tragically, legal fact." So true. It was an extremely easy read and felt like story unfolding before me. I found myself frequently saying "just one more short chapter" before going to bed. Extremely well written.

Readers of my blog ([...]) will likely find the later half of the book (starting on page 130) particularly interesting (and sobering) as the use of intelligence test scores and the diagnosis of MR/ID becomes a major point of the story. How some of those in the legal field (and one judge in particular) played with the IQ scores and failed to recognize that they are imperfect measures (the need to recognize measurement error) is eye-opening and sobering to those of us involved in intelligence testing development and research.

I give it two big thumbs up.

Dr. Kevin McGrew
Educational Psychologist
Director, Institute for Applied Psychometrics

I read this book in two evenings--it was very hard to put down. "The Last Lawyer" gives a well-written and compelling look at the work of capital postconviction defense. Whether you agree with the death penalty or not, I highly recommend this to you.

I finished The Last Lawyer late last night. It is a great book.

This is a suspenseful story written without overly dramatizing and without synthetic suspense prose. It makes the legal system (almost) comprehensible to the average person. The people are presented in a compelling manner with all their humanity on display, neither deified nor condemned, just presented with understanding and humor. The objectivity is laudable and is a lamentably lonely and badly needed model for journalists and non-fiction writers. This book will do a lot to help people understand the conundrum of death penalty law and practice, and it will be effective in part because the author reports the situation as he saw it without proselytizing. He neither pushs a viewpoint nor avoids saying what he sees. The people he admires have quirks and faults; those he doesn't have likable qualities. The writing seems very unselfconscious in this respect, which disarms the reader so accustomed to being manipulated by writers.

One important thing of many that I learned is the point of view of the prosecutor, that if the death penalty weren't on the books, it would scale down the punishments for murder. I had never realized that aspect, the huge role plea bargaining plays in the whole system. We will never know (my guess) about the motivational role of the death penalty in discouraging murder, but it does seem reasonable to predict easier punishments resulting from its abolition, and to me that's a serious problem. The greatest tragedy (except for murder victims) of it all seems to me the huge time delays in resolving cases. Living on death row for 20 years - I can't see any benefit to anyone in that. Lessening the penalty for murder is a major concern, probably more important than the handful of executions that actually occur.

Of course, the shoddy incompetence of the Bo Jones prosecution is lamentable. The legal system must be reformed! But, then again, does it work any less effectively than any of our other institutions? Probably not, but the consequences can be devastating for individuals. Who shall reform it? Not single minded zealots like Ken and company for sure. It seems to be our lot as humans in a society to have our institutions swing back and forth between imperfect positions. Maybe they just reflect our nature as humans - imperfectible.

Like the others, I also couldn't put this down. I received the book on the 23rd and was done by the 24th!!! Amazing - although I am not normally defense-oriented in the legal sense, this book allowed me to see it and understand it from the other side. I was drawn to the defendant's story and legal issues - and I just had to find out how he fared in it all. Its good to see the system that I work in really works - and that justice will prevail for which ever side it is owed to.

Spellbinding. It read like a suspenseful novel -- I couldn't put it down. The characters of Sara and Mark were my favorites; they came to life on the pages. You don't need to be a lawyer to like this. Much more riveting than Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol. Trust me, The Last Lawyer is the best book I've read all year.

I'll admit that the subject of this book is not something I usually gravitate to, but I received it as a gift, and was pleasantly surprised. This is a compelling story for many reasons. For example, the story of Bo, his conviction, and his family is an interesting one. However, the author takes complicated (and potentially dry) topics such as also death row legal cases, mental retardation evaluation, and appellate courts, and explains them in an understandable and fascinating way. I read this book in 2 days... couldn't put it down! I think that this would be a great gift for anyone who loves to read!

I heard a story on National Public Radio about this case when it was still active in the courts, but other than a general overview of the case, I knew very little before picking up the book.

I've read a lot of non-fiction, but this is the first piece of non-fiction that has seemed to come alive in my hands as I read it. Mr. Temple's writing shows the emotions, dispositions, quirks, admirable (and not so admirable) qualities of those involved in the case in a way that is true to life. I feel like John Temples portrayal of Sara is one of the strongest points in The Last Lawyer.

Most of the book is totally serious, as it probably ought to be, but there was a passage that just made me bust out laughing, it was when the CDPL crew were meeting to discuss some points in the Bo Jones case, and one of the lawyers made a quip about the judge known as "The Deacon." It made the crusaders at the Center for Death Penalty Litigation seem even more real to me.

Well before it was revealed in the book I was fairly sure I knew what the fate of Bo Jones was going to be. The way Temple combined all the fibers of the story compelled me to race to the end, like if I didn't I was going to miss something which should not be missed. As I am keenly interested in matters of social justice, I was sure I was going to be interested in the contents of this book. What surprised me was the way the story caught hold of me, and made me ask excitedly "What's going to happen next?!"

What a great pick by participants of [...]

My husband and I both read The Last Lawyer and loved it because it is so thought provoking. A book club might enjoy this book because of the interesting conversations it would spark.

In "The Last Lawyer", author John Temple takes his readers on a compelling journey through the death penalty appellate process. He follows Ken Rose and his fellow attorneys and the investigators at the Center for Death Penalty Litigation (in Durham, NC) as they take on the case of Bo Jones, a former farmhand convicted of murder in 1993 and sentenced to death. In doing so the author weaves a rich story that is as engrossing as the best legal thriller, while at the same time exposing the reader to the often convoluted process of appealing a death penalty case through the state and federal court systems. Mr. Temple does all this in the context of a story that touches on themes of family, career, politics and justice.

While the appeals process can seem hopelessly complicated and drawn out to non-lawyers, the author skillfully integrates the procedural steps taken by the lawyers into the narrative so that the story flows smoothly. As Bo Jones's case winds its way through the court system, the reader is given a realistic picture of the ups and downs faced by the parties as events (sometimes random, sometimes seemingly unjust) propel the case towards its conclusion. While these events play out over the course of several years, Mr. Temple does a masterful job of keeping the story moving so that at no time does the reader feel that events are dragging.

Although the case is recounted through the eyes of Mr. Rose and his colleagues, the author does his best to present the motives of the many other characters we meet: the defendant's attorney at the original trial, the prosecuting attorney, the primary witness, and the state's attorney handling the appeal. Mr. Temple relies on interviews of the parties and notes and recollections of contemporaneous conversations amongst them (unfortunately not all the parties involved were willing to speak with him) and does not "create" details to add color to the story. He provides us with a well-developed sense of the challenges faced by Mr. Rose and his colleagues both in this cases and in their appellate work generally.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and highly recommend it to anyone.

The Last Lawyer is a must-read for every law student or undergraduate considering a career in the law. Though every word is true, it reads like a riveting novel, a pageturner that gives readers insider access to a world most will never know. It demonstrates through a life-or-death matter why it's so important that attorneys do their jobs well, and for lawyers, it provides a refreshingly positive view of what happens when a zealous advocate fights for justice. I am recommending it to every law student who asks what should be read the summer before the 1L year. This book inspires. Bravo, John Temple!