Dark Spell: Surviving the Sentence

by Mara Leveritt

Overview

For many who've heard of the West Memphis Three--especially through "Devil's Knot" and/or the feature film based on that book, the story of their trials ended when the court handed down their sentences. For the teenagers, though, that moment marked the start of yet another story, one more dangerous than the first. Jason Baldwin was sixteen, the youngest of the three teenagers, when he heard himself sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole. "Dark Spell" is the account of what it was like to be taken in handcuffs and shackles into Arkansas's adult prison system, where inmates and guards alike saw him as a Satanic child-killer. Many of those who sent him there did not expect him to survive. Prison officials shared the same, realistic fear. More than once, death hovered perilously near. But Jason survived. He survived, day by day and year by year, in one of the harshest environments on American soil. This would be a hard story to bear, save that it is brightened and transformed by Jason's insight and upbeat persona. "Dark Spell" illuminates the many ways America's justice system, once having gone wrong, can fight to sustain that wrong. It celebrates the countless ordinary heroes who rose up, using art and new technology, to challenge trials they perceived as mockeries of justice. At its heart, "Dark Spell" walks readers into prison with an innocent teenager and reveals how he managed to forge a life of honor by not abandoning his personal integrity, demanding an education, and discovering the peace to be found in kicking Hacky Sack.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940149272747
Publisher:	Bird Call Press
Publication date:	06/09/2014
Series:	Justice Knot Trilogy , #2
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	297
Sales rank:	730,397
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Mara Leveritt is an Arkansas reporter best known as the author of Devil�s Knot (Atria 2002) and Dark Spell, (Bird Call Press 2013), the first books of her intended Justice Knot Trilogy about three Cub Scouts who were murdered in West Memphis, Arkansas and the case of the three teenagers who were convicted of the murders and then, 18 years later--and after pleading guilty--were abruptly set free. A 2013 feature film staring Colin Firth, Reese Witherspoon and Stephen Moyer is based on Devil's Knot. Leveritt�s earlier book, The Boys on the Tracks, (St. Martin�s Press 1998, republished by Bird Call Press, 2011) focused on the political intrigue surrounding the still-unsolved murders of two Arkansas teenagers.
Leveritt is a contributing editor at Arkansas Times, where she has written extensively about the prosecution of Tim Howard, an African-American man, for the murder of his best friends, who were white. After Howard spent almost 15 years on death row, a court found that state officials had not released potentially exculpatory evidence to his defense lawyers at trial--a violation of law. A new trial has been scheduled for September 2014.