A PROMISE OF JUSTICE The Eighteen-Year Fight to Save Four Innocent Men

Hardback. 1st US Edn. It was the worst travesty of American justice since the infamous Scottsboro trials in Alabama more than half a century earlier. When the bullet-riddled bodies of a young white couple were found on May 12, 1978, the leader of the police investigation declared that he wanted the crime solved - fast. Acting on an anonymous telephone tip, the police quickly arrested four African-American men: Dennis Williams, Verneal Jimerson, Kenny Adams and Willie Rainge. The Ford Heights Four. The four were paraded in handcuffs before television cameras, and police assured the community that the vicious crime had been solved. Then, in trials marred by police and prosecutorial misconduct, perjured testimony, incorrect forensic tests, and the ineptitude of defence lawyers, the men were convicted. But the authors, investigative journalists, took the men seriously and came to believe in their innocence. They enlisted a group of idealistic students, a street-smart private investigator, a maverick newspaper columnist, and a crack team of volunteer lawyers in the cause and launched a campaign to save the innocent men. The team gathered substantial new evidence that eventually exonerated the Ford Heights Four and brought the true killers to trial, delivering on the US Constitution's promise of justice. The book is at once an unflinching look at a system capable of condemning innocent men, and an uplifting story of human resilience, courage, and hope in the face of despair. With Notes on Sources, Epilogue and Index. 258pp. 8vo. h/back. From the library of true crime writer, Wilfred Gregg, with his personal b/plate. F. in Vg+ dw.