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The Wrong Man A True Story of Innocence on Death Row Michael Mello REVIEWS |
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The frightening in-the-trenches story of an attorney's fight to save his client from the death penalty. In 1976, "Crazy Joe" Spaziano, a member of a widely feared motorcycle gang, was sentenced to death for the murder of Laura Lynn Harberts, whose body was found in a trash dump near Spaziano's trailer. Nine years after his conviction by a Florida jury, a set of audiotapes was discovered in which police hypnotized and coached the primary witness against Spaziano, a witness who later recanted his testimony. Despite this exculpatory evidence, Spaziano's case continued to move steadily toward the electric chair. The Wrong Man is the dramatic story of Michael Mello's twenty-year-long fight to save Spaziano from being executed for crimes he didn't commit. In a gripping personal account Mello, a well-known author, activist, and legal commentator, describes the in and outs of this case and the extremes to which he was driven by it. In his desperation to halt this miscarriage of justice, Mello broke ethical and procedural rules, faced possible contempt charges and disbarment proceedings, and gave up hope of ever practicing law in Florida again. Among his unconventional measures was to involve the Miami Herald, which eventually published an investigative piece exposing the fundamental unfairness of Spaziano's sentence, an article that was instrumental in turning the tide of public opinion and bringing the case to the attention of the national media. More than an account of a single, notorious death penalty case, The Wrong Man is an indictment of capital punishment and the criminal justice system-a fascinating first-person narrative about death penalty legal work and a detailed account of how the justice system often fails to deliver justice. Ultimately Mello offers compelling proof of the following sad reality: wrongful convictions can easily occur, and innocent people are sentenced to death and executed in America. “To appreciate the obstacles faced by defense counsel in a modern capital case, one cannot do better than to study The Wrong Man.” —Boston Review "There is a drama to almost any death-penalty case, but Spaziano's case is particularly dramatic as Mello describes him being read his death warrants and moved to the death-watch cells where he will spend his last hours, only to gain another reprieve. It is dramatic, too, in how The Miami Herald, enlisted by Mello, digs up evidence to help save Spaziano's life, including a recantation from the key witness, who was hypnotized before he testified. When Spaziano finally wins a new trial and prosecutors offer him a deal, the book poses a tough question. Should Spaziano plead no contest-not admitting any guilt-to get out from his death sentence and have a chance at parole, or should he risk a retrial-and perhaps another death sentence-to prove his innocence? There is no easy answer." —Chicago Tribune "Mello's book is not just a narrative of the battle to save the client he believed to be innocent, but a sharp criticism of the capital punishment system. The Wrong Man begins, quite simply, 'Innocent people are sentenced to death and executed in the United States." —St. Petersburg Times "Whether you support the death penalty or not, Mello's book deserves your attention. The media filters this kind of information for us and packages it in easy-to-swallow bites. Courtroom dramatists present us with simple black-and-white decisions to make before the commercial break. The Wrong Man is not easily digestible, nor is it simple-but that is exactly why anyone who wants an informed opinion on the death penalty should read it." —Rain Taxi "Mello's book is most significant for its detailed account of how difficult it was to get the death sentence overturned. Most Americans would be horrified at how courts and governors handle death-penalty cases, and this book is more than worth its price for its account of that process." —Washington Post Book World "One of the strengths of Michael Mello's vivid and disturbing book, The Wrong Man, is that he has stripped away the anonymity and revealed a flesh-and-blood human being in anguish over his pending death. Mello has laid bare the torturing years of an innocent man's struggle against the state's machinery of death. The Wrong Man relates two intertwined stories. First, there is Joe Spaziano's personal story of his two-decade fight to prove his innocence and have the criminal justice system acknowledge it. The second story is about Mello himself, the lawyer who fought for Spaziano with tenacity and courage and at great professional risk. The Wrong Man works not just as compelling social commentary, but also as high drama. Mello's staccato delivery of the events leading up to Spaziano's execution is riveting." —Trial Magazine "Of all the defense attorneys expounding on the incarceration of innocent men and women, Michael Mello is probably the most intemperate. And, like all intemperate writing, The Wrong Man appears at first to be rife with exaggerations. For the most part, however, the book—despite its emotionalism and zeal—holds up factually and thus is an important corrective to the conventional wisdom." —Ruminator Review "Stories about innocent individuals convicted of crimes while the actual perpetrators remain at large are becoming increasingly common in U.S. newspapers, magazines, and broadcast outlets. Occasionally the accounts are interesting and complicated enough to fill an entire book. I have read about a hundred such books. But never have I read one about the phenomenon as impassioned, intemperate—or as controversial concerning the role of journalists—as the lawyer Michael Mello's account of the Joseph Spaziano case in Florida." —Steve Weinberg, Columbia Journalism Review "One of the strengths of Michael Mello's vivid and disturbing book, The Wrong Man, is that he has stripped away the anonymity and revealed a flesh-and-blood human being in anguish over his pending death. Mello has laid bare the torturing years of an innocent man's struggle against the state's machinery of death." —Harry Mitchell Caldwell, TRIAL Michael Mello is the author of Deathwork: Defending the Condemned (2002), The United States of America vs. Theodore Kaczynski (1999), Dead Wrong (1997), and Against the Death Penalty (1996). Currently a professor of law at the Vermont Law School, he has worked on several high-profile cases, including those of Ted Bundy, Theodore Kaczynski, and Elizabeth Morgan. Mike Farrell is a celebrated actor and president of California Death Penalty Focus. 552 pages | 1 table | 5-7/8 x 9 | 2001 |
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$29.95 cloth/jacket