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“Summary Judgment is a compelling true story that exposes how conviction of innocents is not the only flaw to be guarded against in our criminal justice system—particularly in cases seeking to impose the death penalty. The book tackles the murky waters of justice for the guilty and will be of great interest to anyone who wants to know more about the legal and moral intricacies of defending a person facing a death sentence. With great honesty, Donald Cameron Clark, Jr. offers an insider perspective and captures the complexities of a fascinating life-and-death case.”
Sister Helen Prejean, C.S.J., death penalty abolitionist and author of Dead Man Walking (1994), The Death of Innocents (2006), and River of Fire (2020)
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SUMMARY JUDGMENT, A LAWYER’S MEMOIR
Everyone leaves death row. Few leave it alive.
During the summer of 1984 twenty-year-old Tommy Hamilton, the product of a deprived childhood in rural Alabama, shoots and kills his boss. Convicted of murder, Tommy is sentenced to death. Before facing the electric chair, one final appeal offers the chance to save Tommy’s life, if only his two Chicago-based lawyers and a nun from Alabama can prove he is not legally guilty…even if he is not truly innocent.
Tommy fears an incarcerated life more than the electric chair. As limited as his intellect is, he realizes that even a reduced life sentence without the possibility of parole is—like electrocution—a death-in-prison sentence. If his lawyers are unable to get him out, Tommy professes a willingness to be executed.
Despite a material witness allegedly committing suicide and their client escaping from jail during the court proceedings, the lawyers present evidence that perjury tainted both Tommy’s conviction and death sentence. Nevertheless, the judge assigned to determine Tommy’s fate maintains that “Hamilton may deserve the death penalty and he may yet receive it.”
Summary Judgment is the fascinating true crime story told by one of Tommy’s lawyers that reveals how this life-and-death case unfolded in real time.
Documents from Summary Judgment
Coming in 2022: Provenance
Provenance tells the tales of my forebears, American Pilgrims and Scottish clansmen. Some were infamous, including one of the first settlers executed in Colonial America and those who served as the source material for Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. And some were famous, including tavern-keepers that welcomed George Washington, the philanthropist namesake of a Vermont town, and a number of Revolutionary War, Civil War, and World War heroes. It honors the everyday struggles of generations of Americans and Scots making their way through the world in the face of poverty and illness. It memorializes the grandparents and parents that formed my values and fueled my ambition. Provenance is the heroic story of generations past and their undeniable imprint on generations to come.