The Court of Last Resort Audiobook By Erle Stanley Gardner cover art

The Court of Last Resort

The True Story of a Team of Crime Experts Who Fought to Save the Wrongfully Convicted

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The Court of Last Resort

By: Erle Stanley Gardner
Narrated by: Mel Foster
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About this listen

The creator of Perry Mason's Edgar Award - winning account of miscarriages of justice, wrongful convictions, legal battles, and landmark reversals.

In 1945, Erle Stanley Gardner, noted attorney and author of the popular Perry Mason mysteries, was contacted by an overwhelmed California public defender who believed his doomed client was innocent. William Marvin Lindley had been convicted of the rape and murder of a young girl along the banks of the Yuba River, and was awaiting execution at San Quentin. After reviewing the case, Gardner agreed to help - it seemed the fate of the "Red-Headed Killer" hinged on the testimony of a colorblind witness.

Gardner's intervention sparked the Court of Last Resort. The Innocence Project of its day, this ambitious and ultimately successful undertaking was devoted to investigating, reviewing, and reversing wrongful convictions owing to poor legal representation, prosecutorial abuses, biased police activity, bench corruption, unreliable witnesses, and careless forensic-evidence testimony. The crimes: rape, murder, kidnapping, and manslaughter. The prisoners: underprivileged and vulnerable men wrongly convicted and condemned to life sentences or death row with only one hope - the devotion of Erle Stanley Gardner and the Court of Last Resort.

Featuring Gardner's most damning cases of injustice from across the country, The Court of Last Resort won the Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime. Originating as a monthly column in Argosy magazine, it was produced as a dramatized court TV show for NBC.

©1952, 1954 Erle Stanley Gardner. (P)2017 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved.
Crime Judicial Systems Law Murder Professionals & Academics True Crime
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The first half is is great stories about the search for justice for the wrongly convicted. It’s obviously dated but all the more interesting because so many crimes couldn’t just be solved with DNA like today. Unfortunately the second half is ponderous essays about the justice system by Gardner. While many of these problems and his suggestions are still relevant today, that doesn’t make listening to his rambling diatribes any more enjoyable.

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