A new elec­tron­ic book by for­mer jour­nal­ist Peter Rooney offers an in-depth look at the case of Joseph Burrows, who was exon­er­at­ed from Illinois’s death row in 1996. In Die Free: A True Story of Murder, Betrayal and Miscarried Justice, Rooney explains how Burrows was sen­tenced to death for the mur­der of William Dulin based on snitch tes­ti­mo­ny. He was con­vict­ed pri­mar­i­ly on the word of Gayle Potter, who recant­ed her tes­ti­mo­ny eight years lat­er and admit­ted to com­mit­ting the crime her­self. According to one review, ​“Rooney makes it clear his book Die Free isn’t an argu­ment against the death penal­ty, but sim­ply anoth­er exam­ple of why such an extreme pun­ish­ment should be re-eval­u­at­ed. His points are made clear­ly and with mer­it as he details obvi­ous evi­dence with­hold­ing by an over-aggres­sive dis­trict attor­ney, threats and intim­i­da­tion of a bor­der­line men­tal­ly chal­lenged man, and the old school thoughts of lit­tle women ver­sus big, burly men.” Rooney is a for­mer staff writer for the Champaign-Urbana News-Gazette and is cur­rent­ly the direc­tor of pub­lic affairs at Amherst College. Joe Burrows died at age 56 in 2009. This case, and sim­i­lar exon­er­a­tions, led to the abo­li­tion of the death penal­ty in Illinois in 2011. The book is avail­able for elec­tron­ic down­load on Amazon​.com.

(K. Cantrell, ​“REVIEW: Die Free: A True Story of Murder, Betrayal and Miscarried Justice by Peter Rooney (eBook),” True Crime Book Reviews, July 11, 2011; DPIC post­ed July 25, 2012). See Innocence. Read more books on the death penal­ty. Listen to DPIC’s pod­cast on Innocence.

Citation Guide