Anatomy of Injustice

At the age of twenty-three, Edward Lee Elmore, a black man, was arrested after the body of a white widow was found brutally beaten in the closet of her home. His connection to the victim was minimal and Elmore was an unlikely killer-mentally retarded, gentle and loving with his family, and with a fifth-grade education, only semiliterate-but barely ninety days after the victim's body was found, he was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death. This is an exhaustive account of the particulars of racism, prosecutorial misconduct, defense ineptitude, and other injustices in Elmore's case, which, as the author makes clear, occur in courts throughout America. He carefully examines each stage of the initial trial, from jury selection to the appeal process, and introduces us to the spirited young female lawyer who for two decades fought to get Elmore a fair trial.