Anatomy of Injustice: A Murder Case Gone Wrong by Raymond Bonner

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Joanne Doroshow

Joanne Doroshow is Executive Director of the Center for Justice & Democracy

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May 2nd, 2012 2:13 PM

Anatomy of Injustice: A Murder Case Gone Wrong by Raymond Bonner

An elderly white woman was killed in a South Carolina town in 1982. Police arrested a mentally disabled black man for the crime; a jury found him guilty and a judge sentenced him to death. Such began a 30 year struggle for truth and justice.

The story of Edward Lee Elmore serves as a stark illustration of the myriad flaws in our nation’s criminal justice system. Author Raymond Bonner describes a murder trial plagued by racism, faulty and fabricated forensic evidence, overzealous policemen, snitch testimony and prosecutors who long ago ceased following their mandate to “do justice.” Using the experience of Elmore as a case-in-point, Bonner walks the reader through the intricacies and absurdities of the law of capital punishment.

Bonner describes one judge’s ruling: “Kinard’s ruling … spoke volumes about the death penalty: no one wants to take responsibility; everyone is always trying to pass the buck. He knew that judges say they’re only enforcing the law given by the legislators; that juries think judges will overrule them; that trial judges look to the appellate judges to save a man, if he should be saved; and that appellate judges say if the man shouldn’t be executed, then let the governor grant clemency.”

Nevertheless, Elmore and his lawyers persevered and worked out a deal in which Elmore pleaded guilty on March 2, 2012, admitting there was significant evidence against him, in exchange for his freedom. Elmore is now a free man. However, there is no certainty the same opportunities will be available to any of the more than 3,100 men and women currently wasting away on death row. The only certainty Bonner leaves the reader with is that there is no way to justly and fairly mete out state-sanctioned murder.

Check out - and get - Anatomy of Injustice: A Murder Case Gone Wrong here.