This is the frighteningly true story of two young cops and two young robbers whose separate destinies fatally cross one March night in a bizarre execution in a deserted Los Angeles field.

    George Diener, World War II veteran and traveling salesman, and his wife, Carol, had old-fashioned values and ordinary aspirations: a home, a family, the pleasure of watching their two sons grow up. But in February 1972, an unthinkable tragedy occurred in the basement of their Nassau County residence, shattering their hopes and dreams forever.   George and Carol doted on their shy eldest son, Richie. But at fifteen, the boy fell into a devastating downward spiral. He started smoking marijuana, shoplifting, and hanging out with drug dealers, and was soon arrested for assault and expelled from school. By the time his parents sought psychiatric counseling for their son, Richie was addicted to barbiturates and given to violent outbursts and threats. The boy George and Carol knew was long gone. Then, one winter evening, Richie came at his father with a steak knife and a suicidal cry of “Shoot!”   Edgar Award–winning author Thomas Thompson delivers a “scary, harrowing” account of a turbulent era in American history when the gulf between young and old, bohemian and conservative, felt wider and more dangerous than ever before (The New York Times Book Review). A tragedy of Shakespearean proportions, the devastating account of George and Carol Diener’s nightmare was adapted into The Death of Richie, a television movie starring Ben Gazzara, Eileen Brennan, and Robby Benson as Richie.

    A culture of corruption pervaded the New York Police Department, where payoffs, protection, and shakedowns of gambling rackets and drug dealers were common practice. The so-called blue code of silence protected the minority of crooked cops from the sanction of the majority.Into this maelstrom came a working class, Brooklyn-born, Italian cop with long hair, a beard, and a taste for opera and ballet. Frank Serpico was a man who couldn't be silenced—or bought—and he refused to go along with the system. He had sworn an oath to uphold the law, even if the perpetrators happened to be other cops. For this unwavering commitment to justice, Serpico nearly paid with his life.

    

    Biography of Frank Costello, one of New York City's most famed crime bosses of all time.

    

    

    This book covers the crimes and prosecution of Juan Corona, who was convicted in 1971 of the murders of 25 itinerant laborers in California's agricultural country.

    Its new edition features a 2011 Foreword by death penalty author Evan Mandery of CUNY's John Jay College of Criminal Justice, as well as a new Preface by the author. The mission, plotted out over deli sandwiches in New York's Central Park in the early 1960s, seemed as impossible then as going to the moon: abolish capital punishment in every state. The approach would fight a war on multiple fronts, using multiple strategies. The people would be dedicated, bright, unsure, unpopular, and fascinating. This book is their personal history: not only the cases and the arguments before courts, the death row inmates and their victims, the judges and politicians urging law and order - this is the true account of the real-life lawyers from the inside. The United States indeed went to the moon, and a few years later the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the death penalty unconstitutional. The victory was long-sought and sweet, and the pages of this book vividly let the reader live the struggle and the victory. And while the abolition eventually became as impermanent as the nation's presence on the moon, these dedicated attorneys certainly made a difference. This is their story. As Evan Mandery writes in his new Foreword, "In these pages, Meltsner lays bare every aspect of his and his colleagues' thinking. You will read how they handicapped their chances, which arguments they thought would work (you may be surprised), and what they thought of the Supreme Court justices who would decide the crucial cases. You will come to understand what they perceived to be the basis for support for the death penalty, and, with Meltsner's unflinching honesty, what they perceived to be the inconsistencies in their position." Mandery concludes: "It is my odd lot in life to have read almost every major book ever written about the death penalty in America. This is the best and the most important. Every serious scholar who wants to advance an argument about capital punishment in the United States - whether it is abolitionist or in favor of the death penalty, or merely a tactical assessment - cites this book. It is open and supremely accessible." And the author's "constitutional vision was years ahead of its time. His book is timeless." Part of the Legal History & Biography Series from Quid Pro Books, the new editions (in print and ebook formats) feature embedded pagination from previous editions, allowing continuity in all new formats and across all prior printings. This book has been adopted in many classes in colleges and law schools, but it is not written just for lawyers and students - it is not burdened with legal jargon and heavy legal analysis. It is accessible to a wide audience and tells the personal stories of the people involved, as well as examining the strategies and the legal and political nuances of death penalty litigation in the United States.

    

    Includes some well-known cases like John George Haigh, and lesser-known ones like the case of Elsie Cameron.