Long Way Home: A Young Man Lost in the System and the Two Women Who Found Him

In another account of justice gone wrong, a good kid from a bad neighborhood, 19-year-old Jovan Mosley, had never been in trouble with the police before Aug. 6, 1999, when he was falsely accused of and arrested for participating in a fight that turned deadly. Though Mosley adamantly declared his innocence, Chicago police handcuffed him in an interrogation room for more than 24 hours, bullying him until the exhausted Mosley signed a confession. Loyola law professor and mystery novelist Caldwell (Red, White & Dead) recounts Mosley's six-year stint in Chicago's toughest county jail, awaiting a trial on a charge of first-degree murder, and her own emotional journey co-chairing his defense. After five years—during which two inept public defenders both advised Mosley to accept a plea bargain—Mosley's plight came to the attention of top-notch Chicago defense attorney Catharine O'Daniel. She took on the case pro bono, recruiting Caldwell, a former civil litigator, to help with the complex trial. Caldwell eloquently evokes Mosley's struggles to have faith in a justice system that had so obviously failed him. (Sept.)