Author | Richard North Patterson |
---|---|
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Genre | Thriller novel |
Publisher | Random House |
Publication date | January 25, 2005 |
Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) |
Pages | 463 pp |
ISBN | 0-345-45019-1 |
OCLC | 56194905 |
813/.54 22 | |
LC Class | PS3566.A8242 C66 2005 |
Preceded by | Balance of Power |
Followed by | Exile |
Conviction is a novel published in 2004 by Richard North Patterson. The novel centers on the debate surrounding capital punishment. [1] [2]
As described by Sherryl Connelly of the New York Daily News, [3]
When activist lawyer Teresa Paget takes on Rennell Price's case, his execution date is only 59 days off. Price and his older brother, both crack dealers, were found guilty of murdering 9-year-old Thuy Sey. She choked to death on semen before her body was dumped in the San Francisco Bay. The horrific crime is 15 years in the past, and the tony law firm that laggardly pursued Rennell's appeals pro bono has dropped the case as hopeless. Teresa quickly determines his original lawyer, a cocaine addict, was criminally ineffectual (he has since been disbarred). She even extracts a deathbed confession from his brother, Payton, who admits his brother was asleep when another man murdered the child in their living room. She also puts together a convincing argument that Rennell is, in fact, retarded.
— Sherryl Connelly, New York Daily News
Sherryl Connelly of the New York Daily News said that "Patterson too fully explores the political climate that predisposes judges against defendants in death penalty appeals" and that he "wallows in the legal complexities". [3]
Sante Kimes also known as the Dragon Lady, was an American murderer, con artist, robber, serial arsonist, and possible serial killer who was convicted of two murders, as well as robbery, forgery, violation of anti-slavery laws and numerous other crimes. Many of these crimes were committed with the assistance of her son, Kenneth Kimes. They were tried and convicted together for the murder of Irene Silverman, along with 117 other charges.
Diane Alexis Whipple was an American lacrosse player and college coach. She was killed in a dog attack in San Francisco on January 26, 2001. The dogs involved were two Presa Canarios. Paul Schneider, the dogs' owner, is a high-ranking member of the Aryan Brotherhood and is serving three life sentences in state prison. The dogs were looked after by Schneider's attorneys, Robert Noel and Marjorie Knoller, a husband and wife who lived in the same apartment building as Whipple. After the fatal attack, the state brought criminal charges against the attorneys. Noel, who was not present during the attack, was convicted of manslaughter. Knoller, who was present, was charged with implied-malice second-degree murder and convicted by the jury. Knoller's murder conviction, an unusual result for an unintended dog attack, was rejected by the trial judge but ultimately upheld. The case clarified the meaning of implied malice murder.
The Scottsboro Boys were nine African-American male teenagers accused of raping two white women in 1931. The landmark set of legal cases from this incident dealt with racism and the right to a fair trial. The cases included a lynch mob before the suspects had been indicted, all-white juries, rushed trials, and disruptive mobs. It is commonly cited as an example of a legal injustice in the United States legal system.
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Thomas Arthur Mesereau Jr. is an American attorney known for defending Michael Jackson in his 2005 child molestation trial, as well as Mike Tyson, Bill Cosby and, in 2023, Danny Masterson, a case in which Mesereau was sanctioned by the judge.
Randall Dale Adams was an American man wrongfully convicted of murder and sentenced to death after the 1976 shooting of Dallas police officer Robert W. Wood. His conviction was overturned in 1989.
Steven Allan Avery is an American convicted murderer from Manitowoc County, Wisconsin, who had previously been wrongfully convicted in 1985 of sexual assault and attempted murder. After serving 18 years of a 32-year sentence, Avery was exonerated by DNA testing and released in 2003, only to be charged with murder two years later.
This is a list of notable overturned convictions in the United States.
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The Nancy Kissel murder case was a highly publicised criminal trial held in the High Court of Hong Kong, where American expatriate Nancy Ann Kissel was convicted of the murder of her husband, 40-year-old investment banker Robert Peter Kissel, in their apartment on 2 November 2003. It was arguably the highest profile criminal case involving an expatriate in Hong Kong's history, and was closely covered in the media.
Peter Connelly was a 17-month-old British boy who was killed in London in 2007 after suffering more than fifty injuries over an eight-month period, during which he was repeatedly seen by the London Borough of Haringey Children's services and National Health Service (NHS) health professionals. Baby P's real first name was revealed as "Peter" on the conclusion of a subsequent trial of Peter's mother's boyfriend on a charge of raping a two-year-old. His full identity was revealed when his killers were named after the expiry of a court anonymity order on 10 August 2009.
Teresa Elena De Simone was murdered in Southampton, England, in 1979. Her murder led to one of the longest proven cases of a miscarriage of justice in English legal history. The murder occurred outside the Tom Tackle pub and was the subject of a three-year police investigation which resulted in the arrest of Sean Hodgson. Hodgson was convicted of the murder by a unanimous jury verdict in 1982 and was sentenced to life imprisonment. After serving 27 years in prison he was exonerated and released in March 2009. DNA analysis of semen samples that had been preserved from the original crime scene showed that they could not have come from him.
The Reversal is the 22nd novel by American author Michael Connelly and features the third major appearance of Los Angeles criminal defense attorney Michael "Mickey" Haller. Connelly introduced Haller in his bestselling 2005 novel The Lincoln Lawyer and then paired him with LAPD detective Harry Bosch, his half-brother, in 2008's The Brass Verdict. In 2009's 9 Dragons, Haller was a secondary character as Bosch's personal lawyer. The Reversal was published in the United States on October 5, 2010.
Teresa Wilson Bean Lewis was an American murderer who was the only woman on death row in Virginia prior to her execution. She was sentenced to death by lethal injection for the murders of her husband and stepson in October 2002. Lewis sought to profit from a $250,000 life insurance policy her stepson had taken out as a U.S. Army reservist in anticipation of his deployment to Iraq.
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Making a Murderer is an American true crime documentary television series written and directed by Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos. The show tells the story of Steven Avery, a man from Manitowoc County, Wisconsin, who served 18 years in prison (1985–2003) after his wrongful conviction for the sexual assault and attempted murder of Penny Beerntsen. He was later charged with and convicted of the 2005 murder of Teresa Halbach. The connected story is that of Avery's nephew Brendan Dassey, who was accused and convicted as an accessory in the murder of Halbach.
Brendan Ray Dassey is an American convicted murderer from Manitowoc County, Wisconsin, who at 16 confessed to being a party to first-degree murder, mutilation of a corpse, and second-degree sexual assault. He was sentenced to life in prison with the earliest possibility of parole in 2048. His videotaped interrogation and confession, which he recanted at trial, substantially contributed to his conviction. Parts were shown, but much was left out, in the Netflix documentary series Making a Murderer (2015). The series examined the 2005–2007 investigation, prosecution, and trials of Dassey and his uncle, Steven Avery, both of whom were convicted of murdering the photographer Teresa Halbach on October 31, 2005.