Description
Book SynopsisThe shocking story of the black inmate who was acquitted after killing two high-ranking prison guards in a case that publicized the horrors of Texas’s “plantation-style” prison system.
Trade ReviewWell documented and unsentimental, Berryhill's account of this infamous 30-year-old murder case that pitted one man's innocent plea against Texas's political might provides a jarring portrait of a once-medieval state prison.
* Publishers Weekly *
Michael Berryhill tells Brown's side of the story with care and skill...the story contributes to the growing literature on Texas prisons and prison histories, and it resonates beyond this topic.
-- Norwood Andrews, University of Texas-Pan American * The Journal of Southern History *
Table of Contents
- Prologue: Victorville, 2010
- Chapter 1: A Fishing Trip to Ellis Prison
- Chapter 2: Death at Turkey Creek
- Chapter 3: Estelle's Bitterness
- Chapter 4: A Confusing Scene
- Chapter 5: The Aura of Ellis
- Chapter 6: The Witch and the Writ Writers
- Chapter 7: The Question of the Gun
- Chapter 8: The Shadow of Ruiz
- Chapter 9: Weasel
- Chapter 10: The Dangers of Testifying
- Chapter 11: Old Thing
- Chapter 12: Eroy as Aggressor
- Chapter 13: The Defense Is Self-Defense
- Chapter 14: Eroy's Story
- Chapter 15: The Perfect Defendant
- Chapter 16: The TDC on Trial
- Chapter 17: The Arc of the Moral Universe
- Chapter 18: The Shoes of Eroy Brown
- Chapter 19: Politics and Prisons
- Chapter 20: The State Tries Again
- Chapter 21: A Cat Batters a Mouse
- Chapter 22: Twenty-Three Jurors
- Chapter 23: Still Not Protected
- Chapter 24: Paying for Justice
- Chapter 25: The End of an Era
- Chapter 26: Free at Last
- Chapter 27: Aftermath
- Notes
- A Note on the Sources
- Selected Bibliography
- Acknowledgments
- Index
