Rege Behe of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review gives a nice overview of John Temple's The Last Lawyer. The book, described by Behe as "often riveting," follows the true inside story of Ken Rose's decade-long of a death row inmate.
A landmark legal case that received scant attention from judges or journalists, the Jones case involves the thorniest issues of death penalty law: inadequate defense, mental retardation, mental illness, and shaky witness testimony. Yet for many years, Rose’s arguments gained no traction, and Bo Jones came within three days of his execution.
Author John Temple follows Rose through a decade of setbacks and triumphs as he gradually unearths the evidence he hopes will save his client’s life. During this same time, Rose also single-handedly builds a nonprofit law firm that becomes a major force in the death penalty debate raging across the South.
Behe goes on to say:
John Temple's reasoned account of the case of Bo Jones, a North Carolina man sentenced to death for the murder of a store owner is balanced and nuanced. It reads more like a best-selling novel than a dry, blow-by-blow account.
The Last Lawyer is now available from University Press of Mississippi. For more information visit http://johntemplebooks.com/book.php
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