 |
 |
 |
 |
||
|
The Teaberry Strangler Meet the author Laura Childs |
The Confessions of Catherine de Medici Meet the author C.W. Gortner |
Collusion Meet the author Stuart Neville |
An Amish Love Meet the author Beth Wiseman, Kathleen Fuller & Kelly Long |
Nate Blakeslee
Dear Reader, Do you remember Tulia? In the summer of 1999, forty-seven people, most of them black, were charged with dealing cocaine in a small west Texas town. The arrests were the work of one rogue undercover officer. Relying almost exclusively on that officer's uncorroborated and contradictory testimony, Swisher County convicted and sentenced nearly all the defendants to unbelievably harsh prison terms, some as high as ninety-nine years. A heroic legal battle ultimately discredited the officer, and all of the convictions were reversed in the summer of 2003. Laws were changed in the state of Texas as a result of the scandal, and the defendants earned a measure of bittersweet redemption. But the story of Tulia is still reverberating, and the national debate over America's drug policy may be reaching a turning point. More than just the story of a racist, violent, and almost pathologically corrupt officer of the law, Tulia is the story of the lives and families ravaged by the war on drugs, of a judicial system that was complicit in a grave injustice, and, finally, of the men and women of conscience who fought to right a horrible wrong. Sincerely, Nate Blakeslee Winner of the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize A New York Times Notable Book of the Year (2005) "Tulia, in Blakeslee's rich and deeply satisfying telling resembles nothing so much as a modern-day To Kill a Mockingbird, or would, that is, if the novel were a true story and Atticus had won." -The New York Times Book Review The unabridged audiobook of TULIA: RACE, COCAINE AND CORRUPTION IN A SMALL TEXAS TOWN by Nate Blakeslee is available from Audio Evolution, LLC www.audioevolution.org and its preferred digital vendor, www.Audible.com. The introduction to TULIA is available as a free podcast at podcast.audioevolution.org or go to ITunes Music Store/Podcasts and type: Audio Evolution |