In his new book, Desire Street: A True Story of Death and Deliverance in New Orleans (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005), the Times-Picayune city edi­tor Jed Horne exam­ines the exon­er­a­tion of Louisiana death row inmate Curtis Kyles and how his case has impact­ed the New Orleans crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem. The book inves­ti­gates the mur­der of Delores Dye, a 60-year-old house­wife who was gunned down in full view of six eye­wit­ness­es. Kyles was arrest­ed and tried twice for the crime. After an ini­tial mis­tri­al, he was con­vict­ed of the crime and spent 14 years on death row before the U.S. Supreme Court reversed his orig­i­nal con­vic­tion. Since then, Kyles was retried unsuc­cess­ful­ly an addi­tion­al three times and even­tu­al­ly freed with all charges dropped. Horne’s book looks at this case and uses Kyles’ expe­ri­ences to demon­strate the bro­ken crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem in New Orleans, includ­ing a review of prob­lems such as racism, the sus­pect nature of eye­wit­ness iden­ti­fi­ca­tion, and the polit­i­cal nature of the rela­tion­ship between death penal­ty cas­es and elect­ed attor­neys and judges. 

(Review, Times-Picayune, Jan. 30, 2005). See Books and Innocence.

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