Anatomy of Innocence Archives

Me and BCon

September 7, 2017 by Laurie King 4 Comments

The gathering of the Tribes of Mystery takes place in Toronto this year, from October 12-15. BoucherCon is the granddaddy of mystery conferences, with nearly four full days of multiple events simultaneously.

If you’re looking for one Laurie King, you’ll find her at these panels:

Thursday 2:30-3:30, Anatomy of Innocence (Grand Centre)

Friday 5-6, interviewing American GoH Megan Abbott (Grand Centre)

And at other times, you’ll trip across her in the book-room, or the bar, or the coffee shop, or looking longingly at the crisp autumnal day out the windows.

You’ll have fun, you’ll make new friends, you’ll find a dozen new writers to love, and you’ll learn lots. Check out the BoucherCon site, here. See you next month in Toronto!

Takeback Tuesday: the innocent

June 27, 2017 by Laurie King 1 Comment

Most of us, deep down, trust the system. Intellectually, we may be aware that mistakes happen, that innocents get screwed, but when it comes right down to it? Yeah, most of us have faith that the truth will out.

A while ago my friend Les Klinger asked me to join a project he and Laura Caldwell (fellow lawyer and bestselling writer) were heading up about the Innocence Project, which helps out men and women who have been convicted, then exonerated of terrible crimes. I imagine my first response was the same as that of the other 14 bestselling authors who joined up, each one assigned one portion of one person’s story: “Um, I’d want to be really sure that these aren’t people who only got off because of a technicality…”

Nope. These are men and women who trusted the system, and paid for it with a huge part of their lives. Twenty years, twenty-eight years. These are, let me say again, people who did nothing—except trust.

The guy they matched me up with was convicted of raping a child, and spent 28 nightmarish years in prison. The portion of his experience they wanted me to do was the trial itself. (SJ Rozan, for example, wrote about the unexpected knock on the door and the arrest of a young woman law student; Sara Paretsky wrote the next slice of the experience, the interrogation—basically the torture—of a young man the police just knew had done it. Though he hadn’t.)

I said I would, if I could read the trial transcript. This took some digging, since the trial was three decades ago, but they found it, and I read it, and I was astonished at how much could be read between the stark lines of the stenographer’s print: the subtle interplay between the attorneys, the things the defense attorney completely missed, the way the prosecutor the jury with no interruption from the judge.

The absurd conclusions of the crime lab. The manipulation of witnesses.

In the end, 24 year-old Ray Towler was convicted of being a black man who trusted a jury not to convict an innocent man.

Every story in The Anatomy of Innocence is a variation on that theme. And yet, the thing that truly astonishes me, to this day? Ray isn’t bitter. None of the people whose stories appear in the book are bitter. Twenty nine years of living in a box, and out he walks into a world of cell phones.

Today for Takeback Tuesday I’m urging you to read this book. If you’re in the Bay Area, come to the San Francisco Public Library tomorrow night and listen to us talk about the book and the problems, along with another exonoree from Northern California. If you’re not local, watch for the YouTube appearance of the panel from the SFPL.

The panel consists of editors Leslie S. Klinger and Laura Caldwell, Linda Starr, director of the Northern California Innocence Project, Maurice Caldwell, exonoree, and Laurie R. King, contributor to the book. Details and RSVP here.

You can also order a book from the event’s co-sponsor, Book Passage, here. Or get a copy from your local Indie bookseller here, from Amazon here, or from Barnes & Noble here.

Takeback Tuesday: taking back justice

March 28, 2017 by Laurie King 2 Comments

Today is pub day for a book I’ve been involved with for the past year or more:

Anatomy of Innocence is the brainchild of Laura Caldwell and Leslie S.Klinger, both lawyers, both friends of mine. Laura is the director and founder of the Life After Innocence clinic at Loyola University Chicago School of Law, which works with wrongfully convicted individuals or other innocent persons to help them re-enter society and reclaim their lives. Life After Innocence was inspired by one of her clients, a 19-year-old man, who sat in a Cook County holding cell for nearly six years without a trial before Laura and a renowned criminal defense attorney won his release.

Anatomy of Innocence has fifteen top writers, each of whom tells one portion of the story that every one of these falsely convicted people went through.

But the real beauty of the book is how the stubborn belief of individuals—attorneys, family, and the convicted persons themselves—can win out despite the massive authority of the judicial system.

Something to keep in mind, as we look at ways to take back our Tuesdays.

* *

I will be part of an event in San Francisco in June, talking about the project with Les and Laura. There are also events in New York, Madison, Chicago, LA, and Denver, with more to come—see the events page, here.

In the meantime, you can read about the writers and exonerees of Anatomy of Innocence, and see the stellar reviews and articles from the Bar Association to Newsweek’s Six Best Books of the Week and the NYT article excerpting the book’s Arthur Miller essay. Laura and Les have a podcast going live tomorrow, here. And finally, yes, you can order a copy from Audible, Amazon, Kindle, Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, or IndieBound.

Anatomy of Innocence

February 2, 2017 by Laurie King 7 Comments

Can you imagine being arrested for a crime you had nothing to do with? A crime so horrible, you’re nauseated just thinking about? Can you imagine finding yourself in a courtroom, trusting that the system works, so it can’t possibly find you guilty…except it does?

Can you imagine spending your life behind bars for a crime you did not commit?

Anatomy of Innocence is a story composed of slices from the lives of fifteen men and women convicted of terrible felonies. Each section is written by a bestselling crime writer: SJ Rozan writes about how one woman’s nightmare began; Sara Paretsky explores the horrors of an interrogation.

Mine is chapter three: the trial. The man whose story I tell was convicted through mistaken identification, fake science, and poor representation. Basically, he spent 29 years in prison for the crime of being black.

And the truly amazing part? These people aren’t bitter. They come out of having their lives stolen from them, and they shine.

The book comes out on March 28, and we’ve just had the Booklist review:

Anatomy of Innocence: Testimonies of the Wrongfully Convicted

Caldwell, Laura (Editor) and Klinger, Leslie S. (Editor)

….Though each personal history is fascinating based on its facts alone, the exonerees are paired with mystery and crime writers (including Sara Paretsky, Lee Child, and S. J. Rozan) to tell their stories. The book’s structure follows the sequences of the criminal-justice system, from the initial knock on the door to the interrogation through trials, appeals, and freedom….editors Caldwell and Klinger add context from research conducted by the Innocence Project. The structure and multiple authors create an uneven collection of chapters: those focused on appeals and prison time allow for greater exposition of the trial history and personal context, while early stories leave readers with more questions. However, the collection shines in its focus on people whose stories should be urgently told. Featuring a previously unpublished essay by Arthur Miller, this book will captivate readers interested in justice and the U.S. legal system.

The writers and editors will be doing various events across the country, and there’s a panel on the Innocence Project that I’ll be on at Left Coast Crime. More on those events later.

And you can pre-order a copy from your local Indie bookseller here, from Amazon here, or from Barnes & Noble here.