State of Georgia versus Clevon Jamel Jenkins

This gripping true crime story is both a classic American whodunit and a devastating indictment of the American criminal justice system. In 1993, five Black teenagers were arrested for the robbery and malice murder of a white grocer in rural southeast Georgia. One of those arrested was 17-year-old Clevon Jamel Jenkins, a budding rap artist from Brooklyn who had just recently moved south to escape the violence of Bedford-Stuyvesant and live with his grandmother.

From the very beginning, Jenkins insisted he was innocent. He begged his court-appointed lawyers to let him testify in his own defense and tell the jury what happened, but they told him that the trial was "going well" and there was no reason for him to testify. After a deeply flawed two-day trial, Jenkins was quickly convicted by the jury and sentenced to life in prison without any possibility of parole.

A year later, former New York City prosecutor Robert Michael Kelly reviewed the trial transcript and immediately concluded that Jenkins had been denied a fair trial. Over the next seven years, he filed multiple legal challenges in both state and federal courts -- including the U.S. Supreme Court -- fighting to overturn Jenkins' conviction. Despite his best efforts, every appeal was denied.

In this riveting and meticulously researched book, Kelly presents the full story for the first time -- the investigation, the trial, the numerous legal battles, and the troubling questions that still remain. He lays out the evidence in detail, explains the legal principles involved, exposes the procedural failures, and invites you to weigh the evidence and decide for yourself. Is Jenkins guilty? Did he receive a fair trial? Should he remain in prison for the remainder of his life for a crime he probably did not commit?