Central Skagit Library District

On February 4, 1974, Patty Hearst, a sophomore in college and heiress to the Hearst family fortune, was kidnapped by a ragtag group of self-styled revolutionaries calling itself the Symbionese Liberation Army. The already sensational story took the first of many incredible twists when the group released a tape of Patty saying she had joined the SLA and had adopted the nom de guerre "Tania"...Based on more than a hundred interviews and thousands of...

This is the author's account of her hard-fought battle to overcome injustice and win the freedom she deserved after spending four years in prison for the murder of Meredith Kercher in Perugia, Italy. She spent four years in a foreign prison for a crime she did not commit. Separated from her family, she was demonized by the international press and treated harshly by the Italian justice system, including disdainful police. She endured humiliation, injustice,...

The trial of the Knights Templar is one of the most infamous in history. Accused of heresy by the king of France, the Templars were arrested and imprisoned, had their goods seized and their monasteries ransacked. Under brutal interrogation and torture, many made shocking confessions: denial of Christ, desecration of the Cross, sex acts, and more. This narrative follows the everyday reality of the trial, from the early days of scandal and scheming...

Documents the true story of one of the longest wrongful imprisonment cases in U.S. history, detailing how three African-American men were incarcerated for nearly four decades before a questionable witness recanted his testimony. "From award-winning investigative journalist Kyle Swenson, the true story of one of the longest wrongful imprisonments in the United States to end in exoneration, and a critical social and political history of Cleveland,...

"It is 1873. Mrs. Eliza Touchet is the Scottish housekeeper-and cousin by marriage-of a once-famous novelist, now in decline, William Ainsworth, with whom she has lived for thirty years. Mrs. Touchet is a woman of many interests: literature, justice, abolitionism, class, her cousin, his wives, this life and the next. But she is also sceptical. She suspects her cousin of having no talent; his successful friend, Mr. Charles Dickens, of being a bully...

McGraw recounts his experiences as the top newsroom lawyer for The New York Times during the most turbulent era for journalism in generations. [This book] shares McGraw's battle experiences as The Times's Deputy General Counsel since 2002, leading the paper's fight for freedom of information, defending it against libel suits, and providing legal counsel to the reporters breaking the biggest stories. From Hillary Clinton's email investigation to Trump's...

"Arrested? For teaching? John Scopes's crime riveted the world, and crowds flocked to the trial of the man who dared to tell students about a forbidden topic--evolution. The year was 1925, and discussing Darwin's theory of evolution was illegal in Tennessee classrooms. Lawyers wanted to challenge the law, and businessmen smelled opportunity. But no one imagined the firestorm the Scopes Trial would ignite--or the media circus that would follow. As...

In East London in the summer of 1895, Robert Coombes (age thirteen) and his brother Nattie (age twelve) were arrested for matricide and sent for trial at the Old Bailey. Robert confessed to having stabbed his mother, but his lawyers argued that he was insane. The judge sentenced him to detention in Broadmoor, the most infamous criminal lunatic asylum in the land. Shockingly, Broadmoor turned out to be the beginning of a new life for Robert. At a time...

An insider's account of the trial and final days of New England Patriots tight-end Aaron Hernandez, written by his defense attorney, chronicles the near-impossible courtroom victory that led to Hernandez's acquittal days before his suicide.

A man who spent thirty years on death row for a crime he did not commit describes how he became a victim of a flawed legal system, recounting the years he shared with fellow inmates who were eventually executed before his exoneration.