Anatomy of Injustice: A Murder Case Gone Wrong, by Raymond Bonner
A book discussion with Raymond Bonner and Mark Danner
When: Thursday, March 15, 6:30 PM
Where: 132 Boalt Hall
In January 1982, an elderly white widow was murdered in the small town of Greenwood, South Carolina. Police immediately arrested Edward Lee Elmore, a poor, mentally challenged black man with no previous felony record. Barely ninety days after the victim's body was found, he was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death. The case has all the issues that mark the debate about the death penalty — race, mental retardation, "snitch" testimony, DNA-testing, a strong claim of innocence, bad defense lawyers, and prosecutorial misconduct writ large. The book also tells the inspirational story of a lawyer, Diana Holt, who fought to save Elmore's life. Reviewing the book for The Atlantic, Andrew Cohen called it "the book of the century about the death penalty." Publishers Weekly described it as a "lucid, page-turning account" and "not only a gripping human story but a first-rate introduction to the more problematic aspects of American criminal law."
Bonner examines Elmore's defense through three jury trials and many complex legal proceedings. He also explores the moral and legal issues in a case that has been in the courts for three decades.
Raymond Bonner earned a law degree from Stanford in 1967 and practiced before teaching law at UC Davis and founding the Public Interest Clearinghouse at Hastings College of Law in San Francisco. Later, he became an investigative reporter and foreign correspondent for The New York Times and received numerous awards and honors, including the Louis M. Lyons Award for Conscience and Integrity in Journalism, from the Nieman Foundation Fellows, in 1996. He was a member of the Times team that won a Pulitzer Prize in 1999 for articles about the sale of American technology to China. He has also been a staff writer at The New Yorker and has written for The New York Review of Books. His first book, Weakness and Deceit: U.S. Policy and El Salvador, received the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award; his second, Waltzing with a Dictator: The Marcoses and the Making of American Policy, received the Overseas Press Club and Sidney Hillman book awards. He now lives in London.
Mark Danner, Chancellor's Professor of Journalism, Politics and English at the University of California at Berkeley, has written for more than two decades on foreign affairs and international conflict. He has covered Central America, Haiti, Balkans and Iraq, among many other stories, and has written extensively about the development of American foreign policy during the late Cold War and afterward, and about violations of human rights during that time. His books include Stripping Bare the Body: Politics Violence War (2009), The Secret Way to War: The Downing Street Memo and the Iraq War's Buried History (2006), Torture and Truth: America, Abu Ghraib and the War on Terror (2004), The Road to Illegitimacy: One Reporter's Travel's Through the 2000 Florida Vote Recount (2004) and The Massacre at El Mozote: A Parable of the Cold War (1994).
Presented by the Berkeley Law Death Penalty Clinic and the Graduate School of Journalism.
VALLEY OF SHADOWS & DREAMS: Reception and Book Signing
and Current Exhibition at the North Gate Hall Gallery (January 17-May 15, 2012)
When: Friday, March 16, 6:00 PM
Where: 105 North Gate Hall
Photography by Ken Light | Text by Melanie Light | Forward by Thomas Steinbeck
“Valley of Shadows and Dreams explores a different California from the one that most people know—a California far from Hollywood and Malibu and San Francisco, a California that in some elemental respects has not changed much since the days of the Spanish conquistadors. The same sort of manual labor prevails in the fields, the same exploitation of the weakest and poorest still blights the land. In this book you will find a powerful indictment not only of what has happened lately in America's largest state, but also of what is happening across this country right now. The abuse of illegal immigrants, environmental degradation, the madness of a real estate bubble, and all the other problems of the Central Valley are unfortunately relevant nationwide. Ken and Melanie Light bring great compassion and an eye for beauty to this subject, facing hard truths but refusing to despair. As John Steinbeck argued more than seventy years ago, the demand for justice and the need for true democracy are timeless, essential things.”
—Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation
******* EVENTS OF INTEREST *******
Is Democracy on the Retreat? Europe Between Market Pressure, German Rigour, and Technocracy
When: Thursday, March 1, 4:00 PM
Where: 223 Moses Hall
Federico Rampini is la Repubblica's New York Bureau Chief. Previously, he has served as a columnist and correspondent for la Repubblica in Beijing, where he inaugurated the publication's China bureau in July 2004. As a special envoy, he travels frequently to India, Japan and Southeast Asia. From 2000 to 2004, Rampini was la Repubblica's West Coast correspondent based in San Francisco, California. From 1997 to 2000, he was the European editor of la Repubblica. He has been a visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Journalism and at the Shanghai University of Economics and Finance.
The Iranian Crisis: Is War Inevitable?
When: Monday, March 19, 4:00 PM
Where: Sutardja Dai Hall, Banatao Auditorium
As the U.S. and Israel reach a dangerous turning point in their relations with Iran, a panel of distinguished analysts will focus on these issues:
- Can Iran be stopped in its drive to produce nuclear weapons?
- If Iran succeeds, what will be the consequences for regional stability?
- In what ways do domestic politics and regional dynamics drive the principal actors—the U.S., Iran, and Israel—in their choice of war or diplomacy?
- How has the Arab Spring changed the dynamics of regional politics and the outlook for proliferation?
- How will the American Presidential elections affect the crisis?
Avner Cohen is a Senior Fellow at the Center for Non-Proliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies and a Professor in the Graduate School of International Policy and Management. He is widely known for his path-breaking history of the Israeli nuclear program, is an internationally recognized author and expert on nonproliferation issues, focusing on the Middle East. His most recent publication is The Worst-Kept Secret: Israel’s Bargain with the Bomb.
Karim Sadjadpour is an associate at the Carnegie Endowment. He joined Carnegie after four years as the chief Iran analyst at the International Crisis Group based in Washington and Tehran, where he conducted dozens of interviews with senior Iranian officials, and hundreds with Iranian intellectuals, clerics, dissidents, paramilitaries, businessmen, students, activists, and youth, among others. He is a regular contributor to BBC TV and radio, CNN, National Public Radio, PBSNewsHour, and Al-Jazeera. He contributes regularly to publications such as theEconomist, Washington Post, New York Times, International Herald Tribune, and Foreign Policy.
Shibley Telhami is the Anwar Sadat Professor for Peace and Development at the University of Maryland, College Park, and non-resident senior fellow at the Saban Center at the Brookings Institution. His publications include his best-selling book,The Stakes: America and the Middle East. He has been a principal investigator in the annual Arab Public Opinion Survey, conducted since 2002 in six Arab countries.
The Robert T. Matsui Center for Politics and Public Service presents the 31st Annual Review of the Presidency
Election Year: The Obama Presidency and the 2012 Campaign
When: Monday, April 2, 7:30 PM
Where: 105 Stanley Hall
As President Obama seeks a second term, we examine his presidency and the 2012 election. Is the president to blame for the stagnant economy that has bedeviled his administration? Would any president have been able to engineer a speedier economic recovery? How has the president managed the foreign policy challenges of his time? Has he met the need for symbolic leadership from the president? And what of the Republicans who seek to replace him? Four years after a dramatic election that made American history, what should we expect from the election of 2012?
31st Annual Review Panelists
Andrew E. Busch, Professor of Government and Associate Dean of the Faculty at Claremont McKenna College
John Fund, Senior Editor, The American Spectator and author of Stealing Elections: How Voter Fraud Threatens Our Democracy
Anne E. Kornblut, White House correspondent for the Washington Post and author of Notes From the Cracked Ceiling
Paul Pierson, John Gross Endowed Chair, Professor of Political Science, University of California, Berkeley and author of Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class
—
Julie Hirano
Event & Fundraising Coordinator
Graduate School of Journalism
121 North Gate Hall
University of California at Berkeley
(work) 510.642.3394
(fax) 510.643.2680
http://journalism.berkeley.edu