Stuff
Product Details
Free Press, February 2004
Trade Paperback, 256 pages
ISBN-10: 0743228405
ISBN-13: 9780743228404
Read an Excerpt
Text Excerpt 1
Description
In No Crueler Tyrannies, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Dorothy Rabinowitz re-frames the facts, reconsiders the evidence, and demystifies the proceedings of some of America's most harrowing cases of failed justice. Recalling the hysteria that accompanied the child sex-abuse witch-hunts of the 1980s and 1990s, Rabinowitz's investigative study brings to life such alarming examples of prosecutorial terrors as the case against New Jersey nursery school worker Kelly Michaels, absurdly accused of 280 counts of sexual assault; the as-yet-unfinished story of Gerald Amirault's involvement in the Fells Acres scandal; Patrick Griffin, a respected physician whose life and reputation were destroyed by one false accusation of molestation; and Miami policeman Grant Snowden's sentencing of five consecutive life terms for a crime that, as proved in court eleven years later, he did not commit.
By turns a shocking exposé, a much-needed postmortem, and a required-reading assignment for prosecutors and judges alike, No Crueler Tyrannies is ultimately an inspiring book about the courage of ordinary citizens who believe in the American judicial system enough to fight for due process.
Read more:
Text Excerpt 1Nat Hentoff
Village Voice, Editor & Publisher, United Media Newspaper Syndicate, Legal Times
Not many journalists are truly investigative reporters -- spending weeks, months, even longer to get inside the whole story. No reporter is braver, more tenacious, and more effective than Dorothy Rabinowitz
-- as her compelling book No Crueler Tyrannies vividly demonstrates. On each of these stories, she started alone, sometimes in personal danger, and eventually, most of the rest of the national press followed her lead.
Nat HentoffVillage VoiceNo reporter is braver, more tenacious, and more effective than Dorothy Rabinowitz.
The Washington Post[Rabinowitz] has a stylish, gripping way of conveying her indignation about the fate of adults who have been falsely convicted of sex crimes.
The American SpectatorAn invaluable introduction to the nightmare world of ludicrous accusations, complicit judges, credulous media, and hysterical publics. Rabinowitz tells the story simply, sparely, and calmly.
