Bringing Ben home A murder, a conviction, and the fight to redeem American justice

Jeffrey Young, a 33-year-old businessman and father, was working on a Sunday night in March 1987, before being beaten by two men in his office building's parking garage, locked in the trunk of his BMW, and left, dead, on a West Dallas street.The brutal murder of a white man in a predominantly Black Dallas neighborhood brought national pressure to the case. Despite conflicting witness statements and an alibi, detectives arrested Benjamine Spencer, who maintained his innocence during his trials and for more than 30 years of incarceration. Journalist Hagerty (Life Reimagined, 2016) takes readers through Ben's story, from the rushed investigation to the uphill battle to prove his innocence. When describing each piece of the process, such as the use of jailhouse informants, Hagerty draws on examples from other exonerees' cases, at times distracting from the narrative of Ben's experience. Including interviews with many people involved in Ben's case and excerpts of his letters from prison, Bringing Ben Home shines a wrenching, difficult spotlight on the U.S. legal system's potential for extraordinary failure.

A thought-provoking cultural discussion of wrongful convictions based on race. In 1987, Benjamine Spencer, a Black man, received a life sentence for a crime he did not commit: the brutal murder of Jeffrey Young, a white man, in Dallas. According to Hagerty, author of Life Reimagined and Fingerprints of God, this narrative--of an innocent person of color incarcerated without the benefits of credible witnesses, solid evidence, a competent investigation, or effective legal counsel--is disturbingly common. What makes this story distinctive, however, is the author's keen understanding that each experience is unique to a specific individual. The concept of injustice may be monolithic, but the mechanics involved are far more complex than most people comprehend. "If Spencer's experience could be captured in one sentence," writes Hagerty, "it is this: Convicting an innocent person is easy; undoing the mistake is almost impossible." The author's narrative persuasively demonstrates how deeply embedded racism is in the fabric of the American criminal justice system. Unfortunately, few people heroically advocate for the wrongly imprisoned. In this case, the hero is Jim McCloskey, a Vietnam veteran and priest who has been instrumental in the modern innocence movement and aided Spencer in his fight for freedom until 2021, "when he became one of the rare prisoners in America who persuaded a prosecutor to take a second look at his conviction." The description of the emancipation process is occasionally a slog, but Hagerty skillfully interweaves details of relevant past cases and historical commentary about how the justice system consistently moves the goalpost to punish Black Americans. Thankfully, the story has a satisfying conclusion, but it's disconcerting nonetheless. Hagerty's work will appeal to readers of Bryan Stevenson's Just Mercy and similar books. A stirring account of a legal travesty that effectively reveals a rotten core within the justice system. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.