{"product_id":"9781621900948","title":"An Evil Day in Georgia: The Killing of Coleman Osborn and the Death Penalty in the Progressive-Era South","description":"\u003cbr\u003eOn the night of August 5, 1927, someone shot and killed Coleman Osborn, a store owner in\u003cbr\u003eChatsworth, Georgia, in his place of business. Police and neighbors found only circumstantial\u003cbr\u003etraces of the murderer: tire tracks, boot prints, shell casings, and five dollars in cash near\u003cbr\u003eOsborn’s body. That day, three individuals—James Hugh Moss, a black family man locally\u003cbr\u003erenowned for his baseball skills; Clifford Thompson, Moss’s white friend who grew up in the\u003cbr\u003eSmoky Mountains; and Eula Mae Thompson, Clifford’s wife and a woman with a troubling history\u003cbr\u003eof failed marriages and minor run-ins with the law—left Etowah, Tennessee, unknowingly\u003cbr\u003eon a collision course with Deep South justice.\u003cp\u003eIn chilling detail, Robert N. Smith examines the circumstantial evidence and deeply flawed\u003cbr\u003ejudicial process that led to death sentences for Moss and the Thompsons. Moving hastily in the\u003cbr\u003ewake of the crime, investigators determined from the outset that the Tennessee trio, well known\u003cbr\u003eas bootleggers, were the culprits. Moss and Clifford Thompson were tried and convicted within a\u003cbr\u003emonth of the murder. Eula Mae was tried separately from the other two defendants in February\u003cbr\u003e1928, and her sentence brought her notoriety and celebrity status. On the night of her husband’s\u003cbr\u003eexecution, she recanted her original story and would change it repeatedly in the following years.\u003cbr\u003eAs reporters from Atlanta and across Georgia descended on Murray County to cover the trials\u003cbr\u003eand convictions, the public perception of Eula Mae changed from that of cold-blooded murderer\u003cbr\u003eto victim—one worthy of certain benefits that suited her status as a white woman. Eula Mae\u003cbr\u003eThompson’s death sentence was commuted in 1928, thanks in part to numerous press interviews\u003cbr\u003eand staged photos. She was released in 1936 but would not stay out of trouble for long.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eAn Evil Day in Georgia\u003c\/i\u003e exposes the historic deficiencies in death penalty implementation\u003cbr\u003eand questions, through its case study of the Osborn murder, whether justice can ever be truly\u003cbr\u003eunbiased when capital punishment is inextricably linked to personal and political ambition and\u003cbr\u003eto social and cultural values.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"University of Tennessee Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47061326987504,"sku":"9781621900948","price":46.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781621900948_p0.jpg?v=1763860869","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781621900948","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}