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Luck is a Talent

Gary V. Johnson

4.9/5 (21700 ratings)

Description:For many of those likely to read Gary V. Johnson’s Luck is a Talent, there is no need for Spoiler Alerts of the plot twists, and he wisely wrote the book accordingly. Millions of us exposed daily to Chicago-region media have been sadly familiar with Jeanine Nicarico’s smiling, bright-eyed face since 1983. With that image frozen in time and in our minds, it is stunning to realize that had not a serial rapist/killer kicked in the door of the Nicarico house that horrible February day when she was home sick from school, she would be nearing 50 today. Perhaps that sensation of time warp was caused by the twenty-eight – yes, twenty-eight! – years of investigations, trials, appeals and retrials, and aftermath litigations stemming from the Nicarico debacle. Given its brutality, there was naturally a pressing public desire to see the murder solved, and those responsible brought to justice. The “break” came a year after the crime, in what Johnson pointedly notes was a heated election year for States Attorney in the county – DuPage – where it was committed. Three young men, from a community in neighboring bluer-collar Kane County, were arrested and charged. Just one glitch: All three were innocent. But even early indications of this didn’t seem to matter to a ramrod prosecution bent on securing death sentences for all three men. Johnson serendipitously came into the case as defense counsel for one of them, Steve Buckley. With his immediate and steadfast belief in Buckley’s innocence, the hung jury he effected for him while the other two defendants were convicted and sent to Death Row, and the multiple failures of justice of the Nicarico case ultimately resulting in the abolition of the Death Penalty in Illinois, Johnson’s memoir could easily have lapsed into strutting self-aggrandizement of his role in all of it. Instead, the book is refreshingly self-effacing as he recalls his bad moments along with the good. At one point, which opens the book, he finds himself jailed for contempt, envious of his female co-counsel being allowed to watch Jeopardy! in a cell around the corner. At a less amusing point – in the wake of a disastrous cross-examination of a prosecution witness – he miserably confides to a colleague, “I think I just killed Steve Buckley.” This is not a difficult read, and it easily could have been. Where understanding of courtroom procedure is necessary, Johnson admirably conveys the technical workings, neither bogging the layman reader down in legalese, nor condescendingly dumbing it down.But although its high and low points are summarized, Luck is a Talent is not a painstaking play-by-play of the Nicarico case. It is, by Johnson’s own subtitle, a memoir that also dips into scenes (“sidebars”) from his legal career before and after his most famous case, told with frequent light humor and grown-wiser reflection. And, Johnson is not afraid to ask himself the Big Questions; there is considerable examination of the concept of moral courage throughout Luck is a Talent. On the mountainous heap of twists of fate resulting from a little girl staying home sick from school one day in 1983 – a child brutalized and murdered, a family forever emotionally shattered, innocent men sent to Death Row, legal and political careers made and/or destroyed – the author readily admits he can add his own name to the What Ifs. Only because of an earlier, unexpected career offer did Gary V. Johnson find himself in a defense counsel role in the Nicarico case; otherwise, he would have been wrestling his conscience across the aisle at the DuPage County prosecution’s table.We have made it easy for you to find a PDF Ebooks without any digging. And by having access to our ebooks online or by storing it on your computer, you have convenient answers with Luck is a Talent. To get started finding Luck is a Talent, you are right to find our website which has a comprehensive collection of manuals listed.
Our library is the biggest of these that have literally hundreds of thousands of different products represented.

Pages: 235

Format: PDF, EPUB & Kindle Edition

Publisher: State Street Publishing, Elgin, Ill.

Release: 2020

ISBN: 9781495140

Description: For many of those likely to read Gary V. Johnson’s Luck is a Talent, there is no need for Spoiler Alerts of the plot twists, and he wisely wrote the book accordingly. Millions of us exposed daily to Chicago-region media have been sadly familiar with Jeanine Nicarico’s smiling, bright-eyed face since 1983. With that image frozen in time and in our minds, it is stunning to realize that had not a serial rapist/killer kicked in the door of the Nicarico house that horrible February day when she was home sick from school, she would be nearing 50 today. Perhaps that sensation of time warp was caused by the twenty-eight – yes, twenty-eight! – years of investigations, trials, appeals and retrials, and aftermath litigations stemming from the Nicarico debacle. Given its brutality, there was naturally a pressing public desire to see the murder solved, and those responsible brought to justice. The “break” came a year after the crime, in what Johnson pointedly notes was a heated election year for States Attorney in the county – DuPage – where it was committed. Three young men, from a community in neighboring bluer-collar Kane County, were arrested and charged. Just one glitch: All three were innocent. But even early indications of this didn’t seem to matter to a ramrod prosecution bent on securing death sentences for all three men. Johnson serendipitously came into the case as defense counsel for one of them, Steve Buckley. With his immediate and steadfast belief in Buckley’s innocence, the hung jury he effected for him while the other two defendants were convicted and sent to Death Row, and the multiple failures of justice of the Nicarico case ultimately resulting in the abolition of the Death Penalty in Illinois, Johnson’s memoir could easily have lapsed into strutting self-aggrandizement of his role in all of it. Instead, the book is refreshingly self-effacing as he recalls his bad moments along with the good. At one point, which opens the book, he finds himself jailed for contempt, envious of his female co-counsel being allowed to watch Jeopardy! in a cell around the corner. At a less amusing point – in the wake of a disastrous cross-examination of a prosecution witness – he miserably confides to a colleague, “I think I just killed Steve Buckley.” This is not a difficult read, and it easily could have been. Where understanding of courtroom procedure is necessary, Johnson admirably conveys the technical workings, neither bogging the layman reader down in legalese, nor condescendingly dumbing it down.But although its high and low points are summarized, Luck is a Talent is not a painstaking play-by-play of the Nicarico case. It is, by Johnson’s own subtitle, a memoir that also dips into scenes (“sidebars”) from his legal career before and after his most famous case, told with frequent light humor and grown-wiser reflection. And, Johnson is not afraid to ask himself the Big Questions; there is considerable examination of the concept of moral courage throughout Luck is a Talent. On the mountainous heap of twists of fate resulting from a little girl staying home sick from school one day in 1983 – a child brutalized and murdered, a family forever emotionally shattered, innocent men sent to Death Row, legal and political careers made and/or destroyed – the author readily admits he can add his own name to the What Ifs. Only because of an earlier, unexpected career offer did Gary V. Johnson find himself in a defense counsel role in the Nicarico case; otherwise, he would have been wrestling his conscience across the aisle at the DuPage County prosecution’s table.We have made it easy for you to find a PDF Ebooks without any digging. And by having access to our ebooks online or by storing it on your computer, you have convenient answers with Luck is a Talent. To get started finding Luck is a Talent, you are right to find our website which has a comprehensive collection of manuals listed.
Our library is the biggest of these that have literally hundreds of thousands of different products represented.

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Luck is a Talent

Luck is a Talent

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