Rectify
The Power of Restorative Justice After Wrongful Conviction
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Narrated by:
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Rachel Fulginiti
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By:
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Lara Bazelon
About this listen
Makes a powerful argument for adopting a model of restorative justice as part of the Innocence Movement so exonerees, crime victims, and their communities can come together to heal.
In Rectify, a former Innocence Project director and journalist Lara Bazelon puts a face to the growing number of men and women exonerated from crimes that kept them behind bars for years - sometimes decades - and that devastate not only the exonerees but also their families, the crime victims who mistakenly identified them as perpetrators, the jurors who convicted them, and the prosecutors who realized too late that they helped convict an innocent person.
Bazelon focuses on Thomas Haynesworth, a teenager arrested for multiple rapes in Virginia, and Janet Burke, a rape victim who mistakenly IDed him. It took over two decades before he was exonerated. Conventional wisdom points to an exoneration as a happy ending to tragic tales of injustice, such as Haynesworth's. However, even when the physical shackles are left behind, invisible ones can be profoundly more difficult to unlock.
In the midst of Bazelon's frustration over the blatant limitations of courts and advocates, her hope is renewed by the fledgling but growing movement to apply the centuries-old practice of restorative justice to wrongful conviction cases. Using the stories of Thomas Haynesworth, Janet Burke, and other crime victims and exonerees, she demonstrates how the transformative experience of connecting isolated individuals around mutual trauma and a shared purpose of repairing harm unite unlikely allies. Movingly written and vigorously researched, Rectify takes to task the far-reaching failures of our criminal justice system and offers a window into a future where the power it yields can be used in pursuit of healing and unity rather than punishment and blame.
©2018 Lara Bazelon (P)2018 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
“Lara Bazelon’s groundbreaking book Rectify: The Power of Restorative Justice After Wrongful Conviction is a searing indictment of the criminal justice system’s penchant for flawed practices, depraved indifference toward offenders and wanton abuses of power.” (Juvenile Justice Information Exchange)
“Rectify takes perhaps the first fair and balanced look at the unique and devastating harm that wrongful convictions inflict. From the original victims and the innocent men and women to our families and wider communities, Lara Bazelon’s groundbreaking work demonstrates that by collectively showing up and bearing witness to each other’s trauma, we can unpack our grief, restore our voices, and become strong and powerful wounded healers.” (Jennifer Thompson, author of Picking Cotton: Our Memoir of Injustice and Redemption and founder of Healing Justice)
“Lara Bazelon is a personal hero of mine. She fearlessly tackles treacherous legal issues with her brain and her pen, and the results are profound. In Rectify, she shines a light on the ‘second punishment’ that follows exoneration: the stigmas and obstacles that former prisoners and crime victims face even though they’ve already paid a terrible price. I highly recommend this book.” (Jason Flom, CEO of Lava Records and host of Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flom)
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Story
On September 15, 1963, the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, AL, was bombed, killing four young girls. Who were the perpetrators? Due to reluctant witnesses and racial prejudice, the FBI closed the case without any indictments. But as Martin Luther King, Jr., claimed, "the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." Bending Toward Justice is a detailed account of this key moment in our national struggle for equality and the long road to prosecuting those responsible for the tragedy, related by an author who played a major role in the investigation.
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Great piece of History
- By rita on 03-08-19
By: Doug Jones, and others
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Tough Cases
- Judges Tell the Stories of Some of the Hardest Decisions They've Ever Made
- By: Russell F. Canan - editor, Gregory E. Mize - editor, Frederick H. Weisberg - editor
- Narrated by: Isabel Keating, Richard Ferrone
- Length: 11 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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In Tough Cases, judges from different kinds of courts in different parts of the country write about the case that proved most difficult for them to decide. Some of these cases received international attention: the Elián González case in which Judge Jennifer Bailey had to decide whether to return a seven-year-old boy to his father in Cuba after his mother drowned trying to bring the child to the United States, or the Terri Schiavo case in which Judge George Greer had to decide whether to withdraw life support from a woman in a vegetative state over the wishes of her parents.
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Puts being a judge in perspective
- By David Bigelow Stouffer on 01-14-20
By: Russell F. Canan - editor, and others
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Devil’s Knot
- The True Story of the West Memphis Three
- By: Mara Leveritt
- Narrated by: Lorna Raver
- Length: 15 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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“Free the West Memphis Three!” - maybe you’ve heard the phrase, but do you know why their story is so alarming? Do you know the facts? The guilty verdicts handed out to three Arkansas teens in a horrific capital murder case were popular in their home state - even upheld on appeal. But after two HBO documentaries called attention to the witch-hunt atmosphere at the trials, artists and other supporters raised concerns about the accompanying lack of evidence.
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Surprisingly disappointing
- By La Becket on 12-05-12
By: Mara Leveritt
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Blood in the Water
- The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy
- By: Heather Ann Thompson
- Narrated by: Erin Bennett
- Length: 22 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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On September 9, 1971, nearly 1,300 prisoners took over the Attica Correctional Facility in upstate New York to protest years of mistreatment. Holding guards and civilian employees hostage, the prisoners negotiated with officials for improved conditions during the four long days and nights that followed. On September 13, the state abruptly sent hundreds of heavily armed troopers and correction officers to retake the prison by force. Their gunfire killed 39 men - hostages as well as prisoners.
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Tragic Events, Well-Told
- By David on 10-27-17
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Anatomy of Injustice
- A Murder Case Gone Wrong
- By: Raymond Bonner
- Narrated by: Mark Bramhall
- Length: 11 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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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.
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A miscarriage of justice if I've ever seen it
- By Education is KEY on 10-11-17
By: Raymond Bonner
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Emmett Till
- The Murder That Shocked the World and Propelled the Civil Rights Movement
- By: Devery S. Anderson
- Narrated by: Brandon Church
- Length: 21 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Emmett Till offers the first truly comprehensive account of the 1955 murder and its aftermath. It tells the story of Emmett Till, the 14-year-old African American boy from Chicago brutally lynched for a harmless flirtation at a country store in the Mississippi Delta. His death and the acquittal of his killers by an all-white jury set off a firestorm of protests that reverberated all over the world and spurred on the civil rights movement.
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An important story narrated with power and warmth
- By R. Nance on 10-04-16
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Little Shoes
- The Sensational Depression-Era Murders That Became My Family's Secret
- By: Pamela Everett
- Narrated by: Coleen Marlo
- Length: 7 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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In the summer of 1937, a California crime stunned an already grim nation. Three little girls were lured away from a neighborhood park to unthinkable deaths. After a frantic week-long manhunt for the killer, a suspect emerged. Justice was swift, and the condemned man was buried away with the horrifying story. But decades later, Pamela Everett, a lawyer and former journalist, starts digging, following up a cryptic comment her father once made about losing two of his sisters. Everett unearths a truly historic legal case that included the genesis of modern sex offender laws and the last man sentenced to hang in California.
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Masterful presentation of secrets and crime case!
- By deb on 05-31-18
By: Pamela Everett
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Wicked Takes the Witness Stand
- A Tale of Murder and Twisted Deceit in Northern Michigan
- By: Mardi Link
- Narrated by: Jim McCance
- Length: 15 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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On a bitterly cold afternoon in December 1986, a Michigan State trooper found the frozen body of Jerry Tobias in the bed of his pickup truck. The 31-year-old oil field worker and small-time drug dealer was clad only in jeans, a checkered shirt, and cowboy boots. Inside the cab of the truck was a fresh package of expensive steaks from a local butcher shop, the first lead in a case that would be quickly lost in a thicket of bungled forensics, shady prosecution, and a psychopathic star witness out for revenge.
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Justice system Vs Conviction system
- By Sean on 11-14-16
By: Mardi Link
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The Lynching
- The Epic Courtroom Battle That Brought Down the Klan
- By: Laurence Leamer
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 10 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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On a Friday night in March 1981, Henry Hays and James Knowles scoured the streets of Mobile in their car, hunting for a black man. The young men were members of Klavern 900 of the United Klans of America. They were seeking to retaliate after a largely black jury could not reach a verdict in a trial involving a black man accused of the murder of a white man. The two Klansmen found 19-year-old Michael Donald walking home alone.
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Very Readable
- By Jean on 06-10-16
By: Laurence Leamer
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The Dating Game Killer
- The True Story of a TV Dating Show, a Violent Sociopath, and a Series of Brutal Murders
- By: Stella Sands
- Narrated by: Charles Constant
- Length: 9 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1978, Rodney Alcala was a contestant on the The Dating Game, one of America's most popular television shows at the time. Handsome, successful, and romantic, he was embraced by the audience - and chosen as the winner by the beautiful bachelorette. To viewers across the country, Rodney seemed like the answer to every woman's dreams. Until they learned the truth about his once and future crimes.
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Like listening to a news report
- By E.J. in Pa. on 09-18-18
By: Stella Sands
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Hate Crime
- The Story of a Dragging in Jasper, Texas
- By: Joyce King
- Narrated by: Jennifer Van Dyck
- Length: 7 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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On June 7, 1998, James Byrd, Jr., a 49-year-old black man, was dragged to his death while chained to the back of a pickup truck driven by three young white men. It happened just outside of Jasper, a sleepy East Texas logging town that, within 24 hours of the discovery of the murder, would be inextricably linked in the nation's imagination to an exceptionally brutal, modern-day lynching. In this superbly written examination of the murder and its aftermath, award-winning journalist Joyce King brings us on a journey that begins at the crime scene.
By: Joyce King
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None of the Above
- The Untold Story of the Atlanta Public Schools Cheating Scandal, Corporate Greed, and the Criminalization of Educators
- By: Shani Robinson, Anna Simonton
- Narrated by: Lisa Renee Pitts
- Length: 10 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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An insider’s account of the infamous Atlanta Public Schools cheating scandal that scapegoated black employees for problems caused by an education reform movement that is increasingly a proxy for corporate greed.
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A well constructed story
- By Sumo Steve on 03-21-19
By: Shani Robinson, and others
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A Wilderness of Error
- The Trials of Jeffrey MacDonald
- By: Errol Morris
- Narrated by: John Pruden
- Length: 14 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Early on the morning of February 17, 1970, in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, a Green Beret doctor named Jeffrey MacDonald called the police for help. When the officers arrived at his home they found the bloody and battered bodies of MacDonald's pregnant wife and two young daughters. The word "pig" was written in blood on the headboard in the master bedroom. As MacDonald was being loaded into the ambulance, he accused a band of drug-crazed hippies of the crime.
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Interesting but Unconvincing
- By A customer on 03-31-15
By: Errol Morris
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Imperfect Justice
- Prosecuting Casey Anthony
- By: Jeff Ashton
- Narrated by: Jeff Ashton
- Length: 11 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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It was the trial that stunned America, the verdict that shocked us all. On July 5, 2011, nearly three years after her initial arrest, Casey Anthony walked away, virtually scot-free, from one of the most sensational murder trials of all time. She'd been accused of killing her daughter, Caylee, but the trial only left behind more questions: Was she actually innocent? What really happened to Caylee? Was this what justice really looked like?
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Surprisingly Compelling -
- By Dave on 03-20-12
By: Jeff Ashton
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On the Courthouse Lawn
- Revised Edition
- By: Sherrilyn Ifill, Bryan Stevenson - foreword
- Narrated by: LisaGay Hamilton
- Length: 8 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Nearly 5,000 black Americans were lynched between 1890 and 1960. Over 40 years later, Sherrilyn Ifill examines the numerous ways that this racial trauma still resounds across the United States. While the lynchings and their immediate aftermath were devastating, the little-known contemporary consequences, such as the marginalization of political and economic development for black Americans, are equally pernicious. A landmark book, On the Courthouse Lawn is a much-needed and urgent road map for communities finally confronting lynching's long shadow.
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Born in Salisbury
- By rondcorbinAmazon Customer on 01-07-20
By: Sherrilyn Ifill, and others
What listeners say about Rectify
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Elaine
- 12-10-18
Important message needed for all prosecutors and judges
Although not crazy about the narrator, the stories are compelling and the theme needs to be adopted by court systems across the country.
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