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A second reckoning : race, injustice, and the last hanging in Annapolis / Scott D. Seligman.

by Seligman, Scott D., author.

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[Lincoln, Nebraska] : Potomac Books, an imprint of the University of Nebraska Press, [2021]

Snowden, John, 1890-1919 -- Trials, litigation, etc.

Trials (Murder) -- Maryland -- Baltimore County -- 20th century.

Hanging -- Maryland -- Baltimore County -- 20th century.

Discrimination in criminal justice administration -- United States -- History.

African Americans -- Civil rights -- History.

Pardon -- United States.

Evidence, Circumstantial -- United States.

United States -- Race relations -- History.

9781640124653 (hardcover) :

1640124659 (hardcover)

xxi, 258 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Machine generated contents note: List of Illustrations -- Preface -- Dramatis Personae -- A Note on Language -- Prologue -- Part 1. 1917 -- 1. "A Love Match, Pure and Simple" -- 2. "Aren't You Going to Come and Kiss Me?" -- 3. "Altogether Separate and Different Lives" -- 4. "All Annapolis Is Shocked" -- 5. "Not the Faintest Clue, Theory, or Speculation" -- 6. "The Woman Sherlock Holmes" -- 7. "The More Delicate Hand of a Woman" -- 8. "His Name Is Snowden" -- 9. "We Have Got This Negro Dead Right" -- 10. "A Maze of Circumstantial Evidence" -- 11. "I Ain't Scared" -- 12. "Guilty Men and Women Do Not Always Confess" -- 13. "Fairer for the Man, the County, the State" -- Part 2. 1918 -- 14. "Most Heinous and Diabolical" -- 15. "Could Not Have Come from a White Person" -- 16. "It Was Ten Minutes after Eleven When I Got Up" -- 17. "The Man Shoved a Gun against My Head" -- 18. "The Homes of White Women Must Be Protected" -- 19. "Defending Snowden Is Defending the Black People of Maryland" -- 20. "We Have Found No Reversible Error" -- Part 3. 1919 -- 21. "I Forgive Their False Oaths" -- 22. "This Is No Case for Mercy" -- 23. "You Can Appeal to Me until Doomsday" -- 24. "I Could Not Leave This World with a Lie in My Mouth" -- Part 4. 2000 -- 25. "Race Is All Over This Case" -- Part 5. 2001-3 -- 26. "There's Great Jubilation in the Community" -- Afterword -- Epilogue -- Acknowledgments -- Chronology -- Notes -- Further Reading -- Index.

""A Second Reckoning" tells the heartbreaking story of the murder that led to the city of Annapolis's last hanging and a broader appeal for posthumous justice, especially in racially tainted cases"--

"A Second Reckoning tells the story of John Snowden, a Black man accused of the murder of a pregnant white woman in Annapolis, Maryland, in 1917. He refused to confess despite undergoing torture, was tried-through legal shenanigans-by an all-white jury, and was found guilty on circumstantial evidence and sentenced to death. Despite hair-raising, last-minute appeals to spare his life, Snowden was hanged for the crime. But decades after his death, thanks to tireless efforts by interested citizens and family members who believed him a victim of a "legal lynching," Snowden was pardoned posthumously by the governor of Maryland in 2001.A Second Reckoning uses Snowden's case to bring posthumous pardons into the national conversation about amends for past racial injustices. Scott D. Seligman argues that the repeal of racist laws and policies must be augmented by reckoning with America's judicial past, especially in cases in which prejudice may have tainted procedures or perverted verdicts, evidence of bias survives, and a constituency exists for a second look. Seligman illustrates the profound effects such acts of clemency have on the living and ends with a siren call for a reexamination of such cases on the national level by the Department of Justice, which officially refuses to consider them. "--

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