Bringing Ben Home: A Murder, a Conviction, and the Fight to Redeem American Justice

by Barbara Bradley Hagerty Narrated by Barbara Bradley Hagerty

Overview

How states are making their legal systems more equitable, seen through the story of a Black man falsely imprisoned for thirty years for murder.

In 1987, Ben Spencer, a twenty-two-year-old Black man from Dallas, was convicted of murdering white businessman Jeffrey Young-a crime he didn't commit. From the day of his arrest, Spencer insisted that it was “an awful mistake.” The Texas legal system didn't see it that way. It allowed shoddy police work, paid witnesses, and prosecutorial misconduct to convict Spencer of murder, and it ignored later efforts to correct this error. The state's bureaucratic intransigence caused Spencer to spend more than half his life in prison.

Eventually independent investigators, new witness testimony, the foreman of the jury that convicted him, and a new Dallas DA convinced a Texas judge that Spencer had nothing to do with the killing, and in 2021 he was released from prison.

As Spencer's fight to clear himself demonstrates, our legal systems are broken: expedience is more important than the truth. That is starting to change as states across the country implement new efforts to reduce wrongful convictions, and one of the states leading the way is Texas.

Award-winning journalist Barbara Bradley Hagerty has spent years digging into this issue, and she has immersed herself in Spencer's case. She has combed police files and court records, interviewed dozens of witnesses, and had extensive conversations with Spencer, and in Bringing Ben Home she threads together two narratives: how an innocent Black man got caught up in and couldn't escape a legal system that refused to admit its mistakes; and what Texas and other states are doing to address wrongful convictions to make the legal process more equitable for everyone.

By turns fascinating and enraging, personal and provocative, Bringing Ben Home is the powerful story of one innocent man who refused to admit that he was guilty of murder, and how his plight became part of a paradigm shift in how the legal system thinks about innocence as it institutes new methods to overturn wrongful convictions to better protect people like Ben Spencer.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

Praise for Bringing Ben Home:

“Hagerty takes readers through Ben [Spencer’s] story, from the rushed investigation to the uphill battle to prove his innocence. When describing each piece of the process, such as the use of jailhouse informants, Hagerty draws on examples from other exonerees' cases …including interviews with many people involved in Ben's case and excerpts of his letters from prison. Bringing Ben Home shines a wrenching, difficult spotlight on the U.S. legal system's potential for extraordinary failure...This could be a great read for YAs interested in law and justice.” —Booklist

“A thought-provoking cultural discussion of wrongful convictions based on race. … The author’s narrative persuasively demonstrates how deeply embedded racism is in the fabric of the American criminal justice system … A stirring account of a legal travesty that effectively reveals a rotten core within the justice system.” —Kirkus Review

“Ben Spencer’s story is beautifully told by a gifted and determined journalist: There is great suffering, injustice, corruption, waste, and, in the end, redemption. Barbara Bradley Hagerty’s vivid account of his nightmare is simply unforgettable.” —John Grisham, author of The Exchange
 
“Bringing Ben Home explores the ways our legal system punishes the innocent and ignores its mistakes. This book is a revelation to anyone interested in justice, truth, and humanity.”—Sister Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking

“Barbara Bradley Hagerty's painstaking reportage shines through with clarity, and that clarity beckons the reader to reevaluate justice, innocence, and equity in America.” —Caleb Gayle, author of We Refuse to Forget
 
“In the tale of Ben Spencer's fight for freedom, we get righteous anger, unlikely grace, and Hollywood twists. But we also get that rarest bird in the annals of mass incarceration: hope. I was blown away.”—Maurice Chammah, author of Let the Lord Sort Them

“As someone who spent three decades as a trial court prosecutor, I was horrified by the casual callousness that led to many of the wrongful convictions detailed in this important, beautiful, and infuriating work.” —Glenn Kirschner, MSNBC legal analyst

“As a member of the San Antonio Four who served 13 years in a Texas prison for a crime that never occurred, this book dredged up a lot of feelings and memories – frustration, helplessness, and finally hope when someone on the outside believes you.” —Anna Vasquez, director of outreach, Innocence Project of Texas

“A spellbinding story of resilience and faith. It’s a fascinating account of a broken justice system and what people are doing to help mend it.”—James Martin, S.J., author of Jesus: A Pilgrimage
 
“Bringing Ben Home achieves a rare feat: simultaneously infuriating, fascinating, and inspiring. The author’s personal commitment to her subject and his family filled me with awe. This is a luminous book.” —Allison Leotta, author of The Last Good Girl

"Barbara Bradley Hagerty brings her keen eye to the phenomenon of wrongful convictions in this beautifully written and accessible exploration of an injustice in Texas. As she makes clear, when an innocent person is convicted, the harm transcends that individual's suffering and affects all of us.” —Daniel Medwed, author of Barred: Why the Innocent Can't Get Out of Prison
 
“There are valuable lessons here about the reasons for wrongful convictions and the immense difficulty of obtaining justice. With drama, insight, and conviction, Barbara Bradley Hagerty describes how a remarkable team proved Ben Spencer’s innocence and won his freedom.” — Stephen Bright, Yale Law School, veteran death penalty attorney

Kirkus Reviews

2024-05-10
A thought-provoking cultural discussion of wrongful convictions based on race.

In 1987, Benjamine Spencer, a Black man, received a life sentence for a crime he did not commit: the brutal murder of Jeffrey Young, a white man, in Dallas. According to Hagerty, author of Life Reimagined and Fingerprints of God, this narrative—of an innocent person of color incarcerated without the benefits of credible witnesses, solid evidence, a competent investigation, or effective legal counsel—is disturbingly common. What makes this story distinctive, however, is the author’s keen understanding that each experience is unique to a specific individual. The concept of injustice may be monolithic, but the mechanics involved are far more complex than most people comprehend. “If Spencer’s experience could be captured in one sentence,” writes Hagerty, “it is this: Convicting an innocent person is easy; undoing the mistake is almost impossible.” The author’s narrative persuasively demonstrates how deeply embedded racism is in the fabric of the American criminal justice system. Unfortunately, few people heroically advocate for the wrongly imprisoned. In this case, the hero is Jim McCloskey, a Vietnam veteran and priest who has been instrumental in the modern innocence movement and aided Spencer in his fight for freedom until 2021, “when he became one of the rare prisoners in America who persuaded a prosecutor to take a second look at his conviction.” The description of the emancipation process is occasionally a slog, but Hagerty skillfully interweaves details of relevant past cases and historical commentary about how the justice system consistently moves the goalpost to punish Black Americans. Thankfully, the story has a satisfying conclusion, but it’s disconcerting nonetheless. Hagerty’s work will appeal to readers of Bryan Stevenson’s Just Mercy and similar books.

A stirring account of a legal travesty that effectively reveals a rotten core within the justice system.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940160125480
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	08/06/2024
Edition description:	Unabridged