Joseph Lee Heywood is known as the bank cashier who dared to say "No " to Jesse James and his party of bandits and lost his life in the process. Heretofore not much was known about Heywood other than his role in the great Northfield, Minnesota bank raid. In this book, the author uses Heywood's actual military and medical records to trace the course and context of his life during the Civil War, notes his heritage, examines his decision-making during the robbery, and draws a psychological portrait of the man that is consistent with the known facts. Heywood served as a skirmisher at Chickasaw Bayou, was in the center of the attack on Post Arkansas, and participated in two bloody assaults on Vicksburg before being taken down by a life-threatening disease. The self-effacing Heywood could aptly be considered a hero even before his courageous stand in Northfield, unarmed, before violent men with guns.

Presumed Crazy relates the story of an elderly disabled former fishing guide who was ensnared in his state's civil commitment (court-state hospital - nursing home - guardianship) quagmire, what the author calls the "mental health gulag." Because he had stopped taking a drug that was making him ill, he was placed on a 72 hour hold for so-called "noncompliance" and for using God as a consultant to decide what to do (praying). He was spirited away to a hospital 50 miles away from his home where commitment procedures were improperly carried out. The county probate court dismantled his home, consigned his property, income and bank account to a company acting as a "guardian." They forced him into locked confinement in a state hospital where he experienced psychological abuse, assaulted him with a drug that caused him severe adverse side effects, deprived him of therapy that had been effective in maintaining his physical functioning, and squandered an estimated quarter of a million dollars or more in federal funds on ineffective custodial care that wasn't even needed. There was nary so much as a "Sorry about that" when the commitment was rescinded after a new psychiatrist declared that he did not have an Axis I disorder and therefore did not meet the requirements for compulsory incarceration As a result of his confinement, his physical condition deteriorated and he had to be discharged to a series of nursing homes that provided inadequate care under unsanitary conditions. More than a chronicle of one man's misfortunes, Presumed Crazy is a book about a mental health system that can be arrogant, unjust, incompetent and inhumane in its treatment of those who fall into its clutches. The author indicts laws, lawyers and the courts, psychiatrists and the mental illness industry, drug companies, social service agencies, for-profit nursing homes, and the guardianship "business," all of which plague this entire country and its citizens. The author provides statistics, research evidence, history, personality theory, relevant state, federal and international law, and commentary by people who have been victims of the system as well as experts in the field, within his narrative of the plight of Bill Tollefson, his friend of over six decades who suffered and died in the gulag.

As Washington authorities search for the assassins of President Lincoln, Mary Harris awaits trial for having murdered Adoniram Judson Burroughs, the man who had abandoned her and married another. A clever Irish farm girl from Iowa, Mary capitalizes on the sympathy of many influential visitors to pressure Joseph H. Bradley, a prominent Washington attorney, to take her case. Bradley assembles a distinguished group of lawyers and politicians who defend Mary with great skill and cunning, arguing that the accused suffers from "paroxysmal insanity." At the same time, they imply that she is but the instrument of divine retribution for the deceased's own depravity and the complicity of his famous brother, a minister and university president. The trial receives nationwide attention. Lincoln's wife - herself mentally troubled - sends Mary a bouquet of flowers while she is confined in her jail cell. Lawyers jockey to frame the debate, the defense presenting some of the most eloquent and moving speeches ever heard in an American courtroom while the prosecution presents incisive arguments that cut to the heart of the legal issues. Thinking judgment battles feeling judgment for the minds of the jurors. They return with their verdict after just five minutes of deliberation. But public sentiment reverses course when newspapers and the national psychiatric association criticize the decisions made by the jury, the judge, and the lawyers involved in the case. Defendant and counsel become close companions as she struggles with her affliction while he defends one of the Lincoln conspirators. Based on a true story, many historical facts in the case are uncovered which were not available to the jury or the attorneys involved. The author presents in dramatic form what he believes to be the true story of this amazing crime and the surprising romance which emerged from it.