In his 60-plus years as a trial lawyer, Gerry Spence has never represented a person accused of a crime in which the police hadn’t themselves violated the law. Whether by covering up their corrupt dealings, by the falsification or manufacture of evidence, or by the outright murder of civilians, those individuals charged with upholding the law too often break it. The police and prosecutors won’t charge or convict themselves, so the crimes of the criminal justice system are swept under the rug. Nothing changes.
Police State narrates the shocking account of the Madrid train bombings: how the FBI accused an innocent man of treasonous acts they knew he hadn’t committed. It details the rampant racism within Chicago’s police department, which landed a teenager, Dennis Williams, on death row. It unveils the coercive efforts of two cops to extract a false murder confession from frightened, fragile Albert Hancock, along with other appalling evidence from eight of Spence’s most famous cases. And it raises the question: when the people we pay to protect us instead persecute us, how can we be safe?
In Police State, Spence issues a stinging indictment of the American justice system. Demonstrating that the way we select and train our officers guarantees fatal abuses of justice, he prescribes a challenging cure that stands to restore the promise of liberty and justice for all.
What People Are Saying
"We at Southern Poverty Law Center always knew the truth about which Spence writes. Too often the poor and middle class are brutalized and killed by the police in this 'land of the free, ' and Spence offers solutions America must listen to." Morris Dees, President, Southern Poverty Law Center
"In his celebrated career Gerry Spence has not met a criminal that he didn't like or who was not the victim of police or judicial malfeasance. This book revisits his most celebrated cases, some of which represented law enforcement at its worst. It is written with passion, some literary license, and from the fascinating perspective of his interviews with his clients. While I disagree that we are marching towards a police state, Mr. Spence reminds us that no system is perfect. It demands vigilance and people like him to test it." Judge Judy
"A riveting account from the front lines of Gerry Spence's lifelong battle against injustice. He defines the thin line between the policeman and the criminal from his own experience, and it's disturbing and convincing." William Friedkin, Academy Award-winning director
"Obama said, 'This has been going on for a long time.' So, too, says Spence. Spence both exposes the old and proposes the new in ways that may well surprise and satisfy." Harrison Ford
"Gerry Spence's shocking experiences with rogue, killer police in his own cases prove his point, and he offers insightful new solutions that could assure a better tomorrow in the tragic struggle between law enforcement and the people they are sworn to protect." Alan K. Simpson, U.S. Senator, Wyoming (1979-1997)
"Those of us who have been in the hard world of defending against police who kill, lie, and cover it up know what Spence says is true. And his solutions are original and thought-provoking, Milton Grimes, Attorney to Rodney King"