Lawyer john henry browne book

He introduced himself as Officer Rosebud and said he believed her car had been broken into. She needed to come with him to identify a suspect his partner had detained in the parking lot. She thought she smelled alcohol on his breath, but she explained it away in her mind when he flashed her what looked like a police badge. There was no partner and no suspect.

She followed him to what had to be the most decrepit police car ever issued to an officer: a banged-up VW Bug with torn upholstery. Suddenly he flipped a U-turn, stopped the car, and brandished a pair of handcuffs. He quickly cuffed her left wrist, and when she struggled to break free he inadvertently snapped the second cuff on the same wrist.

She fumbled for the door handle, and he raised what looked like a metal pipe and swung it at her head. She dodged the blow and ran out into oncoming traffic. A car stopped, and the passenger door opened. Carol dove across the lap of its passengers, a married couple. By then the VW was lawyer john henry browne book gone. An hour later, about twenty miles north of the mall, Debra Kent, seventeen, disappeared after a play at Viewmont High School.

Witnesses reported seeing a handsome, if suspicious, man with a moustache lurking around the school before the play. The abductions spread east into Colorado, where between January 12,and April 6,three women, all in their twenties, went missing, including twenty-three-year-old Caryn Campbell, who disappeared from a ski resort near Aspen.

May and June saw the youngest victims to date, a twelve-year-old in Pocatello, Idaho, and a fifteen-year-old in Provo, Utah. Slowly, the authorities in the western states began to connect the dots. The kidnappings, and the few bodies that had been recovered, seemed too similar not to be related. The Bug sat in front of the suburban home of two teenagers Hayward knew and whose parents he knew were out of town.

The suspicious car bolted away, and Hayward pursued it for several blocks before it pulled over at an abandoned gas station. The search revealed two pairs of handcuffs, an ice pick, a crowbar, panty hose, and a ski mask. Detectives soon connected Bundy to the DaRonch kidnapping nearly a year earlier, as well as the multiple missing persons investigations.

Then, over the next few weeks, more dots as they consulted the Ted Task Force in Seattle. Then Marlin and Nick offered a warning, one important consideration. He might be sensitive about defending someone implicated in the homicide of young women. Bundy thought about that for just a beat. For the last four decades, the Seattle-based criminal defense lawyer has defended the indefensible.

Robert Bales, Brown has stood at the forefront of our national debate over the death penalty, putting on trail our most base and violent instincts—and the institutional deficiencies that let our most vulnerable fall through the cracks. A formerly drug- and alcohol-addicted yet wildly successful defense attorney who could never let go of the case that started it all, Browne here traces the roots of his discontent as well as his dedication, asking himself the question others have asked him all along: Does defending evil make you evil, too?

Loading interface About the author. John Henry Browne 1 book 2 followers. Write a Review. Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book! Community Reviews. Search review text. Displaying 1 - 30 of 58 reviews. Always Pouting. I always feel kind of disappointed after reading most memoirs and autobiographies but that never stops me from reading more of them for some reason.

I was expecting this one to be more about his work as a lawyer but nope once again the book was more about his personal life. I'm not saying it wouldn't be interesting to read about people's personal lives in their autobiographies but you should be interweaving it with whatever your career is so that I can get a sense of the growth that came from your experiences you know?

Like the whole thing about his questioning his own morals or ethics after representing people who are accused of crimes was legitimate and interesting. I just don't care about his friends from college. An interesting read though, I did learn some things about the legal system. Trav Rockwell. Mislead title. Not worth the read, John Henry Browne could have written a whole book on Bundy with all that he knew though he didn't shed any new facts.

Lawyer john henry browne book

It feels like john Henry Browne was writing a movie script with a bit part appearance by Ted Bundy. Ann Ackermann. Author 2 books 18 followers. I was totally enthralled by this book, but need to give a caveat: I used to practice law in Seattle. I even worked on one of the cases in this book and knew several of the people Browne writes about. I can't recall ever having had the pleasure of meeting the author, although I certainly knew of his existence.

Nevertheless, reading about cases and people I used to know makes the book far more interesting to me than to the average reader, and in that sense, I might not be the most objective reviewer with respect to how exciting the book is. But it is exciting! At one level Browne writes like a true crime writer. He worked on some of Washington's most fascinating criminal cases and his memoir covers them: Ted Bundy, the Wah Mee massacre, the Wenatchee child molestation ring, the Barefoot Bandit, and the Kandahar massacre.

At times when Browne uncovers fraud in the system and gets his client off, you will feel like cheering for him. But the book goes deeper: At its heart is Browne's opposition to the death penalty -- how he developed his legal philosophy and how he implements it in the courtroom. And at times, Browne becomes very personal. His honesty about some of the less pleasant aspects of his life touched me.

The book's biggest bombshell? Without a doubt, Bundy's confessions to Browne. Browne offers the reader information about Bundy and his murders we didn't know about before. Sometimes Browne's account of Bundy's criminal exploits deviates from the known facts. For instance, other books claim that Bundy stole the jailor's clothing and stole his escape car in his second jailbreak, but Browne claims Bundy had an accomplice who provided the car and clothing.

I wish Browne would have explained the deviation, e. The lack of explanations about the deviations is my only complaint about the book. All in all, well worth the read, and important addition not only to the Bundy literature but also literature about criminal defense work. Bravo, Mr. Browne, and now I really regret not having had the chance to have met you in the courtroom!

Nikki in Niagara. A very compelling book that had me turning the pages quickly. I've never read a lawyer's book before except ones by the prosecutor of a big case such as Vincent Bugliosi's books. But the thought of reading about the defending lawyer of people he knows are guilty, some of them having committed heinous crimes intrigued me.

Why do these people do what they do if they are not just scumbags, too? John Henry Browne got me to read his book because he defends guilty people who will be facing the death penalty. His job These aren't the only cases he takes but it's a big part of what he does. Myself, I am adamantly against capital punishment but am glad Browne does the job and not me.

He retells his famous trials and his addictions to drug, alcohol and his ego. This is all very fascinating and he made me aware of a couple cases I didn't know so well. For those of a similar name, see John Henry Brown disambiguation. Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Particular lawyers john henry browne book [ edit ]. References [ edit ]. Associated Press.

Retrieved John Henry Browne official website. The Seattle Times. Seattle Times. Retrieved 1 July Retrieved 30 June USA Today. Retrieved 16 March Retrieved 15 March Browne developed a close relationship with Bundy that spanned years of calls and correspondence. Browne also represented Benjamin Ng, one of three perpetrators of the Seattle Wah Mee Massacre in which 14 individuals were shot at close range.

Defending him at trial was no small task, but Browne was able to save him from the death penalty. Another of the killers, Willie Mak, by contrast, was sentenced to death later reduced to life without parole.