The Last Lawyer: The Fight to Save Death Row Inmates (Hardcover)

~ John Temple (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. For years, lawyer Ken Rose has fought to save wrongly-condemned prisoners; chronicling the story of Rose and death row inmate Bo Jones, author Temple (Dollhouse: Life in a Coroner's Office) finds high drama in Raleigh penitentiaries, North Carolina backroads, cramped law offices, and sweltering courtrooms. Investigators, criminals, judges, witnesses, and attorneys are all finely, vividly drawn in this disturbing account of a justice system hijacked by officials whose prime interest is finding criminals to execute: "Even if Bo Jones wasn't one of the worst of the worst, they pursued him because he was one of the ones they could get." Reviewing the original 1987 murder, the consequent trials and endless hearings, Temple creates an intimate portrait of Rose and his Center for Death Penalty Litigation as they trudge through a decade of work on this case, a typical example that pits the odds and public opinion against them: "To question capital punishment was to appear soft on crime... In court, one well known district attorney sported a golden lapel pin shaped like a hangman's noose." Ultimately, Temple's account is a stand-up-and cheer account of one man standing up for justice.

Review

"For years, lawyer Ken Rose has fought to save wrongly-condemned prisoners; chronicling the story of Rose and death row inmate Bo Jones, author Temple (Deadhouse: Life in a Coroner’s Office) finds high drama in Raleigh penitentiaries, North Carolina backroads, cramped law offices, and sweltering courtrooms. Reviewing the original 1987 murder, the consequent trials and endless hearings, Temple creates an intimate portrait of Rose and his Center for Death Penalty Litigation as they trudge through a decade of work on this case, a typical example that pits the odds and public opinion against them: “To question capital punishment was to appear soft on crime… In court, one well known district attorney sported a golden lapel pin shaped like a hangman’s noose.” Ultimately, Temple’s account is a stand-up-and cheer account of one man standing up for justice."

Publishers Weekly, starred review

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: University Press of Mississippi (September 24, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1604733551
• ISBN-13: 978-1604733556
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #186,140 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, well written. Eye-opening intro to issues of IQ testing in such cases, November 19, 2009

By	Kevin Mcgrew "IAPSYCH" (St. Joseph, MN, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Un-put-downable!, November 16, 2009

By	Helen Parsonage (Winston-Salem, NC) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Amazon Verified Purchase

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.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Can't Put It Down..., January 2, 2010

By	Prosecutor - See all my reviews

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.