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The Last Lawyer: The Fight to Save Death Row Inmates [Hardcover]

John Temple (Author)
4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
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The Last Lawyer: The Fight to Save Death Row Inmates + Angel of Death Row: My Life as a Death Penalty Defense Lawyer + The Autobiography of an Execution
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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: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #394,405 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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The Last Lawyer: The Fight to Save Death Row Inmates
87% buy the item featured on this page:
The Last Lawyer: The Fight to Save Death Row Inmates by John Temple Hardcover 4.8 out of 5 stars (13)
$16.01
The Autobiography of an Execution
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The Autobiography of an Execution by David R. Dow Hardcover 4.0 out of 5 stars (53)
$16.49
Angel of Death Row: My Life as a Death Penalty Defense Lawyer
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Angel of Death Row: My Life as a Death Penalty Defense Lawyer by Andrea Lyon Hardcover 4.0 out of 5 stars (32)
$16.47
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Customer Reviews

13 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
4.8 out of 5 stars (13 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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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)   
This review is from: The Last Lawyer: The Fight to Save Death Row Inmates (Hardcover)
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
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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
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This review is from: The Last Lawyer: The Fight to Save Death Row Inmates (Hardcover)
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.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars a great book, November 12, 2009
By Danny (Ohio) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Last Lawyer: The Fight to Save Death Row Inmates (Hardcover)
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.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars It Made the Crusading Lawyers Seem Real
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... Read more
Published 3 months ago by FURB Furbish

5.0 out of 5 stars A Compelling Trip Through Our Legal System
In "The Last Lawyer", author John Temple takes his readers on a compelling journey through the death penalty appellate process. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Rob F.

4.0 out of 5 stars Very well written
Full disclosure- the author is related to my wife. I read both fiction and non-fiction regularly and this is a very good book. Read more
Published 5 months ago by J.F.

5.0 out of 5 stars changed my mind on capital punishment
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... Read more
Published 6 months ago by Kristin Burgard

3.0 out of 5 stars Story better than the telling
I was drawn to read this book because I am a death penalty opponent and I'm familiar with the work being done by the Center for Death Penalty Litigation here in North Carolina,... Read more
Published 6 months ago by Cecil Bothwell

5.0 out of 5 stars Lawyers can do good things
The Last Lawyer gives hope that a less than perfect legal system can be made to work in at least one case, after years of injustice. Read more
Published 7 months ago by Perry Alan Knop

5.0 out of 5 stars Can't Put It Down...
Like the others, I also couldn't put this down. I received the book on the 23rd and was done by the 24th!!! Read more
Published 8 months ago by Prosecutor

5.0 out of 5 stars Best Book of 2009
The Last Lawyer is a must-read for every law student or undergraduate considering a career in the law. Read more
Published 8 months ago by Law Prof

5.0 out of 5 stars It felt so real that I was anxious -- I had to find out what happened
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. Read more
Published 8 months ago by Cheryl

5.0 out of 5 stars Compelling read... a page-turner
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. Read more
Published 8 months ago by juniper12

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