An Expendable Man: The Near-Execution of Earl Washington, Jr.
- ISBN-10
- 0814722393
- ISBN-13
- 9780814722398
- Category
- Biography & Autobiography
- Pages
- 243
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2006-10-01
- Publisher
- NYU Press
- Author
- Margaret Edds
Description
How is it possible for an innocent man to come within nine days of execution? An Expendable Man answers that question through detailed analysis of the case of Earl Washington Jr., a mentally retarded, black farm hand who was convicted of the 1983 rape and murder of a 19-year-old mother of three in Culpeper, Virginia. He spent almost 18 years in Virginia prisons--9 1/2 of them on death row--for a murder he did not commit. This book reveals the relative ease with which individuals who live at society's margins can be wrongfully convicted, and the extraordinary difficulty of correcting such a wrong once it occurs. Margaret Edds makes the chilling argument that some other "expendable men" almost certainly have been less fortunate than Washington. This, she writes, is "the secret, shameful underbelly" of America's retention of capital punishment. Such wrongful executions may not happen often, but anyone who doubts that innocent people have been executed in the United States should remember the remarkable series of events necessary to save Earl Washington Jr. from such a fate.
Get the book
Similar books
-
The Expendable Man
By Dorothy B. HughesWith The Expendable Man, first published in 1963, Hughes upends the conventions of the wrong-man narrative to deliver a story that engages readers even as it implicates them in the greatest of all American crimes.
-
The Blackbirder
By Dorothy B. HughesPalpably tense from the first page, The Blackbirder is a dark, riveting tale of intrigue and espionage from an “extraordinary” Mystery Writers of America Grand Master (The New Yorker). “Without question this is the best book that ...
-
In a Lonely Place
By Dorothy B. HughesDix Steele is back in town, and 'town' is post-war LA. His best friend Brub is on the force of the LAPD, and as the two meet in country clubs and beach bars, they discuss the latest case: a strangler is preying on young women in the dark.
-
Ride the Pink Horse
By Dorothy B. HughesDuring the annual Fiesta, three desperate men converge in a perilous New Mexico town in this “extraordinary” crime novel (The New Yorker).
-
Dread Journey
By Dorothy B. HughesA starlet on a transcontinental train fears her director may be trying to kill her in this novel by Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Dorothy B. Hughes.
-
The So Blue Marble
By Dorothy B. HughesA “delightful . . . nonstop action” thriller from the author of In a Lonely Place—“readers new to this forgotten classic are in for a treat” (Publishers Weekly).
-
Erle Stanley Gardner: The Case of the Real Perry Mason
By Dorothy Belle HughesErle Stanley Gardner: The Case of the Real Perry Mason
-
The Fortune Men
By Nadifa Mohamed"Originally published in hardcover in Great Britain by Viking, an imprint of Penguin General, a division of Penguin Random House Ltd., London, in 2021"--Title page verso.
-
The Bridge Home
By Padma Venkatraman"Readers will be captivated by this beautifully written novel about young people who must use their instincts and grit to survive. Padma infuses her story with hope and bravery that will inspire readers.
-
The Female Man
By Joanna RussWidely acknowledged as Joanna Russ’s masterpiece, The Female Man is the suspenseful, surprising, darkly witty, and boldly subversive chronicle of what happens when Jeannine, Janet, Joanna, and Jael—all living in parallel worlds—meet.