A LIFE IN THE BALANCE : The Billy Wayne Sinclair Story a Journey from Murder to Redemption Inside America's Worst Prison System

Hardback. Seven years on Death Row. Thirty-five years in the Louisiana prison system - the nation's worst. Denied parole 6 times. Largely responsible for integrating the once fiercely segregated Angola State Penitentiary. Respected, self-trained jailhouse lawyer who has helped 100's of fellow inmates get a fairer deal. Award-winning journalist, editor of the highly respected prison journal The Angolite. Whistle-blower extraordinaire, the man who blew wide open the pardons-for-sale scandal that rocked the Louisiana government and helped send key officials to hail. Married by proxy, behind the backs of prison officials, to a pretty, feisty television anchorwoman, who has been his staunch supporter and helpmate for twenty years and is now his co-author. Such is the abbreviated curriculum vitae of one of America's most famous prisoners. Billy Wayne Sinclair, a man known to many as a latter-day Robin Hood. Sentenced to death in 1965 at age twenty for an unpremeditated murder during a bungled holdup of a convenience store, Billy Wayne spent his first seven prison years on death row. When the death penalty was abolished, his sentence was commuted to life. Three-and-a-half decades later, Billy Wayne was still behind bars - feared by many politicians and prison officials for his well-known incorruptibility and unrelenting crusade for prison reform. This is his memoir. His story takes you behind the metal doors of the Angola State Penitentiary - and other Louisiana prisons - to reveal the brutal truth of life inside. Here you will meet Billy Ray, Billy Wayne's blood brother; old Emmitt Henderson, who died of prison neglect; Jamie Parks, a 17yr old kid whose fate was sealed the day he arrived in Angola; Big Mick, who ran drugs in the prison to earn money to put his handicapped sister through college; Wilbert Rideau, Billy Wayne's co-editor on The Angolite; the Dixie Mafia; and Richard Clark Hand, the young lawyer who took on Billy Wayne's case and had been fighting for his release for 30yrs. On April 21, 2006, Sinclair was released on parole to the State of Texas. Illus. 339pp. lge. 8vo. h/back. From the library of true crime writer, Wilfred Gregg, with his personal b/plate. Vg+ in Vg+ dw. A fairly heavy book which may require additional postage.