The University of Texas at Tyler Libraries

Chasing justice : my story of freeing myself after two decades on death row for a crime I didn't commit / Kerry Max Cook.

By: Cook, Kerry Max, 1956-Material type: TextTextPublisher: New York : William Morrow, c2007Edition: 1st edDescription: x, 342 p. ; 24 cmISBN: 006057464X; 9780060574642Subject(s): Cook, Kerry Max, 1956- -- Trials, litigation, etc | Trials (Rape) -- Texas -- Tyler | Trials (Murder) -- Texas -- Tyler | Judicial error -- Texas | Death row inmates -- Texas -- Biography | Prosecutorial misconduct -- TexasDDC classification: 345.764/22502523 LOC classification: KF224.C66 | C66 2007
Contents:
Prologue: 1977 -- My family -- Pretrial, 1977 and 1978 -- 1978 trial -- Welcome to death row -- Through the killing fields -- Men I could trust -- The more things stay the same: pretrial, 1992 -- The 1992 retrial -- Georgetown rematch, 1994 -- Purgatory -- A November to remember -- The choice -- Living life -- My travels.
Summary: "Chronicles how a smalltown murder became one of the worst cases of prosecutorial misconduct in American history, and sent the author, an innocent man, to hell for 22 harrowing years--Cook is one of the longest-tenured death-row prisoners to be freed. Convicted of killing a young woman in Texas, Cook was sentenced to death in 1978 and served two decades in a prison system so notoriously brutal and violent that in 1980 a federal court ruled that serving time in Texas's jails was "cruel and unusual punishment." When an advocate and a crusading lawyer joined his struggle in the 1990s, a series of retrials was forced. At last, in November 1996, Texas's highest appeals court threw out Cook's conviction, citing overwhelming evidence of police and prosecutorial misconduct. Finally in 1999 long-overlooked DNA evidence linked another man to the rape and murder for which Cook had been convicted.--From publisher description."--From source other than the Library of Congress
List(s) this item appears in: Smith County
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Item type Current location Call number Status Date due Barcode
UASC General Collection University of Texas At Tyler
University Archives & Special Collections 		KF224 .C66 C66 2007 (Browse shelf) Not for loan 0000001910553
Book University of Texas At Tyler
Stacks - 3rd Floor 		KF224 .C66 C66 2007 (Browse shelf) Available 0000001852466

"Chronicles how a smalltown murder became one of the worst cases of prosecutorial misconduct in American history, and sent the author, an innocent man, to hell for 22 harrowing years--Cook is one of the longest-tenured death-row prisoners to be freed. Convicted of killing a young woman in Texas, Cook was sentenced to death in 1978 and served two decades in a prison system so notoriously brutal and violent that in 1980 a federal court ruled that serving time in Texas's jails was "cruel and unusual punishment." When an advocate and a crusading lawyer joined his struggle in the 1990s, a series of retrials was forced. At last, in November 1996, Texas's highest appeals court threw out Cook's conviction, citing overwhelming evidence of police and prosecutorial misconduct. Finally in 1999 long-overlooked DNA evidence linked another man to the rape and murder for which Cook had been convicted.--From publisher description."--From source other than the Library of Congress

Prologue: 1977 -- My family -- Pretrial, 1977 and 1978 -- 1978 trial -- Welcome to death row -- Through the killing fields -- Men I could trust -- The more things stay the same: pretrial, 1992 -- The 1992 retrial -- Georgetown rematch, 1994 -- Purgatory -- A November to remember -- The choice -- Living life -- My travels.

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