DUMMY

Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1974. Book Club (BCE/BOMC). . Hardcover. Good Plus/Good Plus. Tidyman, an Academy Award-winning screenwriter of 'The French Connection' and author of the "Shaft" novels, wrote this True Crime account of one of the most unusual murder cases in the history of the U.S. criminal justice system. In 1965, Donald Lang, a young African American, was arrested for the murder of a Chicago prostitute. He was later accused of a second murder and thought to be responsible for other deaths as well. Lang was poor; he was also illiterate, deaf and dumb and could not understand sign language. He presented the criminal justice system with a defendant who was unable to communicate and could not, therefore, defend himself. A lawyer named Lowell Myers, who was also deaf, was appointed to defend Lang. Tidyman has written the story of two men's years of confrontation with a legal system unprepared to handle the case of a man whose disabilities put him outside the system's own rules. Red cloth boards show some edgewear; top edge of text is foxed; a couple of pages are dogeared, o/w boards and text are clean, tight and square. Dustjacket is whole, but worn at edges, corners and spine ends, with a small, closed tear at top of front panel, which also shows some damage where small price sticker was removed. A decent reading copy.