Convicted, after her high profile trial as a Hollywood Madam, this book is a psychological journey of the heart and mind, written with gut wrenching detail by former Hollywood Madam Jody Babydol Gibson, as she takes you through her journey in the most severe maximum security state penitentiary in the state of California, Central California Womens Facility, otherwise known as "Chowchilla' aka 'Chowkilla'. A True Story, it is a blueprint of how an upper middle-class, girl from a privileged entertainment family, educated in private school from Westchester County, New York, navigated her way mercilessly, through the most severe maximum security state prison system in California, that houses the only Death Row for women in the state. Unlike her first book "Secrets of a Hollywood Super Madam" (amazon), this book is a follow up, and took ten years to write. No A-List names or celebrity stories. It's terrifying, violent, severe, you will not be able to put this book down. Completely ill prepared for such a challenging journey, Ms. Gibson takes you on a roller coaster ride through Hell. You are privy to thoughts from the moment she opened her eyes, until the moment she went to sleep. Inmates like Slick, Devious, and Scrappy, show you what it was like for her to be 'descended upon' like a "target," having come in from a high-profile Hollywood criminal case about money, celebrities, and sex. Chapter 6: THE ROOM, is so compelling you thought this could happen only in the movies. With lesbians, psychos, murderers, and everything else you ever heard, or had nightmares about. Chapter 4; A-YARD, read how the psycho abusive prison gynecologist, rams his fist up your Vagina while his whacko wife watches. Read about the hot Latina Lifer, and her forte in Lesbian sex. In Chapter 21; ADSEG; WELCOME to SOLITARY, Jody terrifies us as to what it feels like to be in solitary confinement, placed in a human cage, as some twisted form of prison protection from being jumped and assaulted by other inmates. And amusing stories like smuggling in her desperately needed contact lenses, in her sister's under wire bra. However, through it all this book is a story about survival; a tale of finding an inner strength, while overcoming adversity. She shows you how she tried desperately to hang on to herself, and remember that she really had a values-based, goal-oriented life; hard to do while living inside a culture designed to extinguish hope. CONVICTED will show you that no matter how impossible the situation may seem, no matter how dark a moment you are in, with your will you can survive it. Jody Babydol Gibson is living proof that you can...

In this remarkable legal page-turner, Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Barry Siegel recounts the dramatic, decades-long saga of Bill Macumber, imprisoned for thirty-eight years for a double homicide he denies committing. In the spring of 1962, a school bus full of students stumbled across a mysterious crime scene on an isolated stretch of Arizona desert: an abandoned car and two bodies. This brutal murder of a young couple bewildered the sheriff 's department of Maricopa County for years. Despite a few promising leads—including several chilling confessions from Ernest Valenzuela, a violent repeat offender—the case went cold. More than a decade later, a clerk in the sheriff 's department, Carol Macumber, came forward to tell police that her estranged husband had confessed to the murders. Though the evidence linking Bill Macumber to the incident was questionable, he was arrested and charged with the crime. During his trial, the judge refused to allow the confession of now-deceased Ernest Valenzuela to be admitted as evidence in part because of the attorney-client privilege. Bill Macumber was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison. The case, rife with extraordinary irregularities, attracted the sustained involvement of the Arizona Justice Project, one of the first and most respected of the non-profit groups that represent victims of manifest injustice across the country. With more twists and turns than a Hollywood movie, Macumber's story illuminates startling, upsetting truths about our justice system, which kept a possibly innocent man locked up for almost forty years, and introduces readers to the generations of dedicated lawyers who never stopped working on his behalf, lawyers who ultimately achieved stunning results. With precise journalistic detail, intimate access and masterly storytelling, Barry Siegel will change your understanding of American jurisprudence, police procedure, and what constitutes justice in our country today.

A true crime podcast sets a trophy wife's present life on a collision course with her secret past in this "blazingly intense" Reese Witherspoon book club pick and New York Times Best Crime Novel of the Year (A. J. Finn). The day Anna McDonald's quiet, respectable life exploded started off like all the days before: Packing up the kids for school, making breakfast, listening to yet another true crime podcast. Then her husband comes downstairs with an announcement, and Anna is suddenly, shockingly alone. Reeling, desperate for distraction, Anna returns to the podcast. Other people's problems are much better than one's own -- a sunken yacht, a murdered family, a hint of international conspiracy. But this case actually is Anna's problem. She knows one of the victims from an earlier life, a life she's taken great pains to leave behind. And she is convinced that she knows what really happened. Then an unexpected visitor arrives on her front stoop, a meddling neighbor intervenes, and life as Anna knows it is well and truly over. The devils of her past are awakened -- and they're in hot pursuit. Convinced she has no other options, Anna goes on the run, and in pursuit of the truth, with a washed-up musician at her side and the podcast as her guide. Conviction is "daredevil storytelling at its finest" (NPR's Fresh Air), a breathtaking thriller from one of the most "superbly talented" writers of our time (Hank Phillippi Ryan, bestselling author of Trust Me).

Ten true tales of people falsely accused detail the flaws in the criminal justice system that landed these people in prison

At fourteen, Steve Truscott was a typical teenager in rural Ontario in the fifties, mainly concerned about going fishing, playing football, and racing bikes with his friends. One summer evening, his twelve-year-old classmate, Lynne Harper, asked for a lift to the nearby highway on his bicycle and Steve agreed. Unfortunately, that made Steve the last person known to see Lynne alive. His world collapsed around him when he was arrested and then convicted of killing Lynne Harper. The penalty at the time was death by hanging. Although the sentence was changed to life in prison, Steve suffered for years behind bars for a murder he didn't commit. When his case gained national attention, the Supreme Court of Canada reviewed the evidence -- and confirmed his conviction. It took over forty years and a determination to prove his innocence for him to finally clear his name. He has since received an apology and compensation for his ordeal. In this book, young readers will discover how an innocent boy was presumed guilty by the justice system, and how in the end, that same justice system, prodded by Truscott and his lawyers, was able to acknowledge the terrible wrong done to him. [Fry reading level - 4.8

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • LOOK FOR THE NETFLIX ORIGINAL DOCUMENTARY SERIES • “Both an American tragedy and [Grisham’s] strongest legal thriller yet, all the more gripping because it happens to be true.”—Entertainment Weekly John Grisham’s first work of nonfiction: a true crime masterpiece that tells the story of small town justice gone terribly awry. In the Major League draft of 1971, the first player chosen from the state of Oklahoma was Ron Williamson. When he signed with the Oakland A’s, he said goodbye to his hometown of Ada and left to pursue his dreams of big league glory. Six years later he was back, his dreams broken by a bad arm and bad habits. He began to show signs of mental illness. Unable to keep a job, he moved in with his mother and slept twenty hours a day on her sofa. In 1982, a twenty-one-year-old cocktail waitress in Ada named Debra Sue Carter was raped and murdered, and for five years the police could not solve the crime. For reasons that were never clear, they suspected Ron Williamson and his friend Dennis Fritz. The two were finally arrested in 1987 and charged with capital murder. With no physical evidence, the prosecution’s case was built on junk science and the testimony of jailhouse snitches and convicts. Dennis Fritz was found guilty and given a life sentence. Ron Williamson was sent to death row. If you believe that in America you are innocent until proven guilty, this book will shock you. If you believe in the death penalty, this book will disturb you. If you believe the criminal justice system is fair, this book will infuriate you. Don’t miss Framed, John Grisham’s first work of nonfiction since The Innocent Man, co-authored with Centurion Ministries founder Jim McCloskey.