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Jenkins was far from home when his life took a wayward and seemingly irrevocable turn. Jenkins was born and raised in Brooklyn. His family believed staying with relatives in Georgia would keep him safe from the often-violent streets of their Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood. On October 8, 1993, Jenkins got into a car with some classmates, and they drove to a local store. Whether he knew of the criminal intentions of a couple of his fellow passengers is moot; the outcome was the robbery and shooting of a convenience store owner. Shortly thereafter, Jenkins and his classmates were apprehended.
Jenkins' trial began in August 1995 and lasted only two days. His conviction was based on the testimony of one of his friends and an alleged admission of culpability by Jenkins. Jenkins wanted to testify, but his lawyers dissuaded him. This, along with various procedural errors made by the courts, would become the basis for the many appeals launched in the decades since his initial conviction.
Injustice lies at the heart of the story of Jenkins, a man who has served over thirty years in jail for his alleged crimes. Jenkins' defense lacked the impassioned advocacy presented in this cogent treatise on the rights of defendants in criminal trials. The narrative provides a concise breakdown of the crime and the defendants, but the story's inherent drama comes from Jenkins's attempts to appeal his verdict and possibly gain his freedom after decades behind bars. The author uses precedents and concise arguments to break down procedural aspects in a way the layman can understand. This is a tale of skewed justice, where the rights of the accused are sacrificed in the name of law and order.
RECOMMENDED by the US Review