Draws on travels, interviews with policymakers, and confidential cables to document the discrepancy between actual events in El Salvador and the U.S. government's questionable interpretation of them

Weakness and Deceit: U.S. Policy and El Salvador

Politics & Social Sciences

Raymond Bonner

Politics & Government

Times Books

[This is the Audiobook CD Library Edition in vinyl case.][Read by Mark Bramhall] From Pulitzer Prize winner Raymond Bonner comes the gripping story of a grievously mishandled murder case that put a twenty-three-year-old man on death row.   In January 1982, an elderly white widow was found brutally murdered in the small town of Greenwood, South Carolina. Police immediately arrested Edward Lee Elmore, a semiliterate, mentally retarded black man with no previous felony record. His only connection to the victim was having cleaned her gutters and windows, but barely ninety days after the victim's body was found, he was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death.   Elmore had been on death row for eleven years when a young attorney named Diana Holt first learned of his case. After attending the University of Texas School of Law, Holt was eager to help the disenfranchised and voiceless -- she herself had been a childhood victim of abuse. It required little scrutiny for Holt to discern that Elmore's case reeked of injustice -- plagued by incompetent court-appointed defense attorneys, a virulent prosecution, and evidence that was both misplaced and contaminated. It was the cause of a lifetime for the spirited, hardworking lawyer. Holt would spend more than a decade fighting on Elmore's behalf.   With the exemplary moral commitment and tenacious investigation that have distinguished his reporting career, Bonner follows Holt's battle to save Elmore's life and shows us how his case is a textbook example of what can go wrong in the American justice system. He reviews police work, evidence gathering, jury selection, work of court-appointed lawyers, latitude of judges, iniquities in the law, prison informants, and the appeals process. Throughout, the actions and motivations of both unlikely heroes and shameful villains in our justice system are vividly revealed.    Moving, enraging, suspenseful, and enlightening, Anatomy of Injustice is a vital contribution to our nation's ongoing and increasingly important debate about inequality and the death penalty.

Anatomy of Injustice: A Murder Case Gone Wrong (Library Edition)

Ethics & Professional Responsibility

Blackstone Audio,Inc.

[Read by Mark Bramhall] From Pulitzer Prize winner Raymond Bonner comes the gripping story of a grievously mishandled murder case that put a twenty-three-year-old man on death row. In January 1982, an elderly white widow was found brutally murdered in the small town of Greenwood, South Carolina. Police immediately arrested Edward Lee Elmore, a semiliterate, mentally retarded black man with no previous felony record. His only connection to the victim was having cleaned her gutters and windows, but barely ninety days after the victim's body was found, he was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death. Elmore had been on death row for eleven years when a young attorney named Diana Holt first learned of his case. After attending the University of Texas School of Law, Holt was eager to help the disenfranchised and voiceless -- she herself had been a childhood victim of abuse. It required little scrutiny for Holt to discern that Elmore's case reeked of injustice -- plagued by incompetent court-appointed defense attorneys, a virulent prosecution, and evidence that was both misplaced and contaminated. It was the cause of a lifetime for the spirited, hardworking lawyer. Holt would spend more than a decade fighting on Elmore's behalf. With the exemplary moral commitment and tenacious investigation that have distinguished his reporting career, Bonner follows Holt's battle to save Elmore's life and shows us how his case is a textbook example of what can go wrong in the American justice system. He reviews police work, evidence gathering, jury selection, work of court-appointed lawyers, latitude of judges, iniquities in the law, prison informants, and the appeals process. Throughout, the actions and motivations of both unlikely heroes and shameful villains in our justice system are vividly revealed. Moving, enraging, suspenseful, and enlightening, Anatomy of Injustice is a vital contribution to our nation's ongoing and increasingly important debate about inequality and the death penalty.

Anatomy of Injustice: A Murder Case Gone Wrong

History

Americas

From Pulitzer Prize winner Raymond Bonner comes the gripping story of a grievously mishandled murder case that put a twenty-three-year-old man on death row. In January 1982, an elderly white widow was found brutally murdered in the small town of Greenwood, South Carolina. Police immediately arrested Edward Lee Elmore, a semiliterate, mentally retarded black man with no previous felony record. His only connection to the victim was having cleaned her gutters and windows, but barely ninety days after the victim's body was found, he was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death. Elmore had been on death row for eleven years when a young attorney named Diana Holt first learned of his case. After attending the University of Texas School of Law, Holt was eager to help the disenfranchised and voiceless--she herself had been a childhood victim of abuse. It required little scrutiny for Holt to discern that Elmore's case reeked of injustice--plagued by incompetent court-appointed defense attorneys, a virulent prosecution, and evidence that was both misplaced and contaminated . It was the cause of a lifetime for the spirited, hardworking lawyer. Holt would spend more than a decade fighting on Elmore's behalf. With the exemplary moral commitment and tenacious investigation that have distinguished his reporting career, Bonner follows Holt's battle to save Elmore's life and shows us how his case is a textbook example of what can go wrong in the American justice system. He reviews police work, evidence gathering, jury selection, work of court-appointed lawyers, latitude of judges, iniquities in the law, prison informants, and the appeals process. Throughout, the actions and motivations of both unlikely heroes and shameful villains in our justice system are vividly revealed. Moving, enraging, suspenseful, and enlightening, Anatomy of Injustice is a vital contribution to our nation's ongoing and increasingly important debate about inequality and the death penalty.

A land and culture poorly understood by analysts, politicians, and voters in the far-off United States. A regime permeated with corruption; a country in the steel grip of a few families that disdained any system which might give a voice to the millions who kept them in comfort: guarding their children, watering their lawns and putting food on their tables. A brutal and remorseless police force and army trained in America, armed with American guns, and fighting a bloody proxy war against anyone who might conceivably be an American foe-whether or not they held a gun. Sound familiar? This was Central America in the 1980s, at a time when El Salvador was the centerpiece of a misguided and ultimately disastrous foreign policy. It resulted in atrocities that took the lives of hundreds of thousands of people and destabilized a region that has not recovered to this day. At a time when the Reagan Administration's obsession with communism overwhelmed objections to its policies, Ray Bonner took a courageous, unflinching look at just who we were supporting and what the consequences were. Now supplemented with an epilogue drawing on newly available, once-secret documents that detail the extent of America's involvement in assassinations, including the infamous murder of three American nuns and a lay missionary in 1980, Weakness and Deceit is a classic, riveting and ultimately tragic account of foreign policy gone terribly wrong. "A landmark book . . . Bonner reveals the full extent of Washington's complicity with a murderous regime bent on eliminating even its mildest critics. This story not only sets the record straight, but, as importantly, it also speaks to the future, serving as a fresh warning of the perennial perils of American engagement in secret wars." -Alan Riding, author of Distant Neighbors: A Portrait of the Mexicans; former Mexico City bureau chief, The New York Times

Weakness and Deceit: America and El Salvador's Dirty War

OR Books

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Books by Raymond Bonner

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Raymond Bonner. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Weakness and Deceit: U.S. Policy and El Salvador

Anatomy of Injustice: A Murder Case Gone Wrong (Library Edition)

Anatomy of Injustice: A Murder Case Gone Wrong

Anatomy of Injustice: A Murder Case Gone Wrong

Weakness and Deceit: America and El Salvador's Dirty War