View the Table of Contents.
Read Chapter 1.
"Best work of non-fiction about Virginia or by a Virginia
author."
--"Manasas Journal Messenger"
"Edds's powerful telling of Washington's experience uses court
documents, personal interviews, and a variety of other sources to
illustrate the political and social circumstances surrounding this
extraordinary case. This book invites the reader to think about how
due process is carried out and implemented. An Expendable Man is a
valuable study of not only the Virginia legal system, but also that
of the United States."
--"Virginia Libraries"
"Explores the dark side of the system of capital punishment. The
book not only goes into great detail in recording Earl Washington,
Jr.'s near-execution but also incorporates some history of the
Virginia legal system."
--"Criminal Justice Review"
"The book is provocative for its vivid characterization and its
study of the death penalty's inherent flaws."
--" Newport News Press"
"Somewhere between the personal narratives found in H. Bruce
Franklin's collection "Prison Writing in 20th-Century America," the
critical work of Mumia Abu-Jamal, and the recent profusion of
sociological studies of America's accelerated prison economy, An
Expendable Man gives us a moving portrait of a broad-based struggle
on behalf of one man, and implies ways in which the halls of
justice might become more just."
--"Trial & Error"
"Careful documentation. Edge-of-the-seat human drama. An
exploration of loopholes in judicial safeguards against wrongful
executions. An Expendable Man contains all of these--and
more."
--"The Virginian-Pilot"
"An Expendable Man forcefully describes how anumber of deeply
committed people resurrected the hope of an innocent man. Edds's
narrative painstakingly follows the sinuous protocols of due
process in America. An Expendable Man gives us a moving portrait of
a broad-based struggle on behalf of one man, and implies ways in
which the halls of justice might become more just."
--"Rain Taxi"
"One of the unique features of the book is its detailed
explanation of the death penalty procedure in Virginia, which is
second only to Texas in its number of executions."
--"Library Jounal"
"A fascinating story, told colorfully and with the law and
justice the final victor."
--"New York Law Journal"
"With chilling clarity, Margaret Edds peels back the layers of
the legal, judicial and social orders to explain how an innocent
man comes within nine days of execution."
--William Raspberry, Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for "The
Washington Post"
"Earl Washington's story reveals the dark side of a system that
is not known for admitting its mistakes. We have a lot to learn
from this case, which highlights many of the problems we see over
and over again in cases of wrongful conviction."
--Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), chief sponsor of The Innocence
Protection Act
"Margaret Edds' book on Earl Washington shows the heavy
handedness with which our society deals with those it deems
expendable. It demonstrates how the politics of the death penalty
skews our moral compass and how a small group of volunteers toiled
for many years to set it straight for one expendable man. Whatever
your position on the death penalty, if you want to know how it
actually works, read this book."
--Sister Helen Prejean
"In An ExpendableMan, Margaret Edds gives a whole new meaning to
the 'Virginia Reel, ' sending the reader spinning off into dizzying
fits of confusion and rage. As she carries us deeper and deeper
into the Virginia justice system, one almost understands how
helpless Earl Washington must have felt in the hands of those
intent on killing him for something he didn't do. Edds here exposes
criminal justice in Virginia as a triumph of style over substance,
laying bare the ease with which the aseat of democracy' became a
fortress of hypocrisy."
--Mike Farrell, actor and human rights activist
"Whether you support or oppose the death penalty, you need to
understand what almost happened to a man named Earl Washington.
Margaret Edds tells his tragic, arresting story with remarkable
sensitivity and a clear-eyed understanding of the stakes not just
for Earl Washington, but for all of us."
--Larry J. Sabato, director of the Center for Politics, University
of Virginia
How is it possible for an innocent man to come within nine days
of execution? An Expendable Man answers that question through
detailed analysis of the case of Earl Washington Jr., a mentally
retarded, black farm hand who was convicted of the 1983 rape and
murder of a 19-year-old mother of three in Culpeper, Virginia. He
spent almost 18 years in Virginia prisons--9 1/2 of them on death
row--for a murder he did not commit.
This book reveals the relative ease with which individuals who
live at society's margins can be wrongfully convicted, and the
extraordinary difficulty of correcting such a wrong once it
occurs.
Washington was eventually freed in February 2001 not because of
the legal and judicial systems, but in spite of them. WhileDNA
testing was central to his eventual pardon, such tests would never
have occurred without an unusually talented and committed legal
team and without a series of incidents that are best described as
pure luck.
Margaret Edds makes the chilling argument that some other
"expendable men" almost certainly have been less fortunate than
Washington. This, she writes, is "the secret, shameful underbelly"
of America's retention of capital punishment. Such wrongful
executions may not happen often, but anyone who doubts that
innocent people have been executed in the United States should
remember the remarkable series of events necessary to save Earl
Washington Jr. from such a fate.
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