© 2013 The Texas Lawbook.
(January 6) — The Wall Street Journal, in its popular “Five Best” identified Contempt of Court: A Turn of the Century Lynching That Launched a Hundred Years of Federalism as one of the best books ever written on the topic of “The Pursuit of Justice.”
The column, published Saturday and authored by former New York assistant district attorney Robert Tanenbaum, described the book as a “richly detailed history” of “the case that led to the establishment of a defendant’s right to seek federal court redress if his constitutional rights had been violated during state court criminal proceedings.”
This is the second time that the Wall Street Journal has recognized Contempt of Court author Mark Curriden, who is the founder and senior writer for The Texas Lawbook and a senior contributing legal writer for The Dallas Morning News and the ABA Journal. Curriden also frequently lectures on the case and offers a very popular CLE program that has been approved for one hour of ethics credit.
In 2005, the WSJ named Curriden’s book the second best all-time on the criminal justice system. Edgar Allan Poe came in first and Victor Hugo was third.
Contempt of Court tells the story of Ed Johnson, a young black man falsely accused of raping a white woman in Chattanooga, Tenn., in 1906. Johnson was horribly railroaded through the state criminal justice system, as he was found guilty and sentenced to death only three weeks after the crime took place.
Fortunately, two lawyers – the only African-American attorneys practicing law in the region – stepped forward to handle the appeal. They filed the first ever federal habeas petition in a state criminal case.
The U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear the case and issued a stay of execution. Sadly, a lynch mob – aided by the sheriff and his deputies – raided the jail and lynched Johnson before the Supreme Court could order him freed.
The angry justices ordered that the sheriff, his deputies and leaders of the lynch mob be charged with criminal contempt of the Supreme Court in what was the first and only criminal trial ever conducted by the nation’s highest court.
For more information about the case, the book and the CLE Ethics program, please visit www.markcurriden.com.
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