First published 2024
In 1987, twenty-two-year-old Ben Spencer faces arrest for the murder of white businessman Jeffrey Young in Dallas. Spencer maintains his innocence from the moment police take him into custody, calling his situation "an awful mistake." The Texas legal system proceeds with his conviction despite shoddy police work, paid witnesses, and prosecutorial misconduct. Spencer spends more than half his life behind bars while the state ignores efforts to correct the error. Independent investigators eventually uncover new witness testimony that supports his claims. The jury foreman who originally convicted him changes his mind. A new Dallas DA takes up Spencer's cause. In 2021, a Texas judge finally agrees that Spencer had no connection to the killing and orders his release. Award-winning journalist Barbara Bradley Hagerty examines Spencer's decades-long fight for freedom alongside the broader movement to reform wrongful conviction practices. She reveals how states across the country now implement new safeguards to prevent similar injustices, with Texas leading these reform efforts.
Genres: american-fiction, historical-fiction, 20th-century, crime, biography-memoir, 21st-century
Vibes: emotional, intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: redemption, underdog
Setting: Dallas, Texas
Period: 1987, 2021
464 pages · Hardcover · Riverhead Books
Content warnings: racism