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    The Hanging Judge
    The Hanging Judge
    The Hanging Judge
    Audiobook12 hours

    The Hanging Judge

    Written by Michael Ponsor

    Narrated by Rich Orlow

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    When a drive-by shooting in Holyoke, Massachusetts, claims the lives of a Puerto Rican drug dealer and a nurse at a neighborhood clinic, the police arrest a black drug dealer. With no death penalty in Massachusetts, the US attorney shifts the double homicide out of state jurisdiction into federal court so that he can pursue the death penalty. The Honorable David S. Norcross, who has been on the federal bench only two years, now presides overthe first death penalty case in the state in fifty years. He must contend not only with an ambitious female prosecutor and a brilliant veteran defense attorney, but with a citizenry outraged at the senseless killing of a white hockey mom-- not to mention the pressures of the media, anti-death penalty protesters, vengeful gang members, and the million other things that can go wrong in a capital trial. Michael A. Ponsor takes readers into the courtroom and beyond, presenting with great sensitivity the points of view of the defendant and his wife; the victims' families; law enforcement officers; witnesses; and the judge who, while still coming to terms with the death of his wife, begins a relationship with a woman he is not sure he can trust.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateDec 3, 2013
    ISBN9781490601281
    The Hanging Judge
    Author

    Michael Ponsor

    Michael Ponsor graduated from Harvard, received a Rhodes Scholarship, and studied for two years at Pembroke College, Oxford. After taking his law degree from Yale and clerking in federal court in Boston, he began his legal career, specializing in criminal defense. He moved to Amherst, Massachusetts, in 1978, where he practiced as a trial attorney in his own firm until his appointment in 1984 as a US magistrate judge in Springfield, Massachusetts. In 1994, President Bill Clinton appointed him a life-tenured US district judge. From 2000 to 2001, he presided over a five-month death penalty trial, the first in Massachusetts in over fifty years. Judge Ponsor continues to serve as a senior US district judge in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts, Western Division, with responsibility for federal criminal and civil cases in the four counties of western Massachusetts. The Hanging Judge is his first novel.

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    Reviews for The Hanging Judge

    3.5/5

    37 ratings9 reviews

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    • 3/5
      A hanging judge might be one who is prone to favor capital punishment or one whose is undecided (i.e., hanging) on the appropriateness of the death penalty. Ponsor—himself a judge who has presided over a death penalty case—does an excellent job of presenting the legal complexities of these proceedings and the nuances in how these decisions are made. His intent is to present the facts, but not to provide an opinion. “Here is how a death penalty trial actually works. Now we can talk.”His protagonist is Judge David Norcross, an amiable guy who is driven to conduct a fair trial that would be unassailable from a legal perspective. His thoughts on the morality of capital punishment are never revealed, but his focus on the overriding importance of fairness in death penalty cases is obvious. Ponsor’s decision to write a legal thriller from the perspective of a judge certainly is unusual and gives him the opportunity to highlight subtle legal issues that often are not prominent in Grisham or Thurow, where action seems more important. The downside to this decision is a plot that seems formulaic and slow. In fact, the only action takes place in the first few pages when a drive-by shooting takes the life or a gang-banger and an innocent bystander. An off duty cop chases down the driver but does not manage to get the shooter. The bulk of the novel consists of character development and legal maneuvering. Although interesting, it does not much of a thriller make. Ponsor tries to show that the players in his drama are real people who are fallible. This, along with the various legal machinations, is intellectually interesting, but falls short of the usual fare offered in thrillers. The defendant, Clarence “Moon” Hudson, is a young African-American man with a criminal past. He represents an intimidating presence in the courtroom, set in Western Massachusetts, a place where young Black men are in the minority and a bit scary. Ponsor clearly attempts to emphasize the importance of community prejudice on death penalty decisions by introducing the true story of Dominick Daley and James Halligan, two innocent Irish immigrants who were executed in this same community in 1806 for a murder where the evidence consisted of little more than the testimony of a young boy, but a time and place where anti-Catholic bigotry was quite common. Most of characters in the novel seem to be clichés of the genre. Bill Redpath is an empathetic but curmudgeonly defense attorney. The Hispanic female defense attorney is highly competent and driven to get a conviction. Clare Lindemann is a sexy divorcee who has an affair with the judge and introduces the issue of how easy it is for loose talk to prejudice a jury. We also have the usual types who inhabit these novels: helpful industrious law clerks, cops who are tempted to get a conviction, gang members and other criminal types who have their own agendas, dubious witnesses who either lie or misremember what they saw and even a crazy old lady who offers comic relief. Ponsor’s strength clearly is his insider knowledge of the nuances that can underlie judicial rulings and the legal strategies that are employed by both parties. He depicts these exceedingly well: testimony the jury can and cannot hear; the need to have the stenographer present at sidebar conferences; attempts by the lawyers to telegraph information to the jury through subtle words and body language, the importance of jury selection. Through these subtleties, Ponsor conveys the idea that these proceedings are often more about procedure, politics and theatrics than innocence and guilt and a prime function of the judge is to mitigate these effects on the decision. In an interview, Ponsor stated that “A legal regime permitting capital punishment comes with a fairly heavy price. I wanted people to know this.” The burden is tremendous because innocent people can and do die (consider the executions of Daly and Halligan) while guilty people may go free. The ending of the novel, although unsatisfying from a storytelling perspective, does raise well the issue of fallibility.
    • 4/5
      Judge David Norcross is young and a little new as a federal judge in Springfield. He has his work cut out for him when a gang shooting in Holyoke gets tried in his court, and the accused may face the death penalty if found guilty.I don't read a lot of courtroom thrillers, but I'm the daughter of a lawyer and can say the courtroom scenes were some of the most believable I've read - and you'd hope they'd be authentic, because the author is a judge. The tension of the case is palpable, and the stakes are high. Readers know more than any character because the points of view shift between several characters. This meant I didn't really feel connected to any one, but it was an entertaining read and kept me wondering what would happen. The local setting meant I could picture a lot of the locations, and interspersed with the trial was an account of an historical trial in Northampton of two Irishmen accused of killing Marcus Lyon in the 1800s in Wilbraham, Massachusetts.
    • 4/5
      This was very well written. I enjoyed the book very much. It was about a man Clarence " Moon" Hudson who was being tried in federal court for the murder of two people. I won't go into the logistics of the trial but the author did an excellent job touching on everyone's life. He kept what could have been a dull book very interesting. I do hate how the prosecution side played so dirty to win their case. I am not saying that they won only that they didn't play fair. It really made me angry. I was happy, but not happy with the ending of the book. I think if you read this you may understand my feeling. But overall good read.
    • 2/5
      I read quite a bit of nonfiction on death penalty cases, and I was looking forward to a fictional take from an author who is also a judge. Unfortunately, this book was a major disappointment for me.First, I want to say Michael Ponsor does an exceptional job of showing the problems within our court system. If you're unfamiliar with the intricate web we call justice, which is often more about procedure and politics than innocence and guilt, then this will be an eye-opening read. One problem I had came with characterization. We have at least a half-dozen viewpoint characters, but none of them stand out as original or interesting people. Judge David Norcross, who is supposed to be the main character, is just one in an ever-revolving line. He doesn't feel like a lead character, especially through the first third or so of the book. Most of the characters feel forced and predictable, though I did love the defense attorney. Where the book really falls apart for me is in the storytelling. Ponsor meanders through, giving us loads of extraneous information. Very little of relevance happens in the first half of the book. If you're looking for a courtroom drama, that aspect doesn't even begin until the second half. The first half can't really be called a crime story, as the interactions are more about personal drama than the crime itself. Large sections are dedicated to characters who are secondary at best. While I appreciate that Ponsor is trying to show us the lives of all the people involved, this winds up pulling us away from the important characters and our emotional connection suffers. In many ways, we are told rather than shown and I couldn't fall into the story.This book is divided into four parts. At the end of each section, we find a short chapter about a real death penalty case that took place in the early 1800s. Ponsor attempts to tie that real case into his fictional characters' current world and it just doesn't work. The historical sections don't blend into the story, but stand isolated. I do think there is a compelling story in that old case, though perhaps it should be written on its own either as historical fiction or true crime. In the end, I struggled to get through this weighty book. Michael Ponsor's attempt is admirable but, for me, is in need of a major edit.
    • 2/5
      A legal thriller about the death penalty told from the perspective of a judge written by a judge with death penalty case experience - sounds worth reading, right? It's a decent book - well thought out and considered and provides a window into the world of death penalty trials that will be familiar to anyone who loves legal thrillers, reads the news, or watches Law and Order and shows of its ilk. All the usual characters are here - the dead gang banger, the equally dead innocent bystander, the ambitious attorneys, the accused, the usual courtroom players. The Hanging Judge doesn't deliver anything particularly new to its story nor to the genre, but the character of Judge Norcross is a good one and his dilemma is a sympathetic one. Interspersed with the story of the trial is the story of Norcross' budding relationship - his first since the death of his wife - his amour a witty, intelligent professor from a nearby college who enlivens every scene she is in.I enjoyed this book, but there's something mildly bloodless about it all - the story feels detached - as readers we observe from on high, but there just wasn't enough connection to the case itself to make me care about what happened. It's a train wreck, but one observed through cell phone video shot at great and shaky distance - you see it coming, you see it happening, but it doesn't feel real enough to grab your attention for longer than a few seconds. I wanted something more visceral than this and The Hanging Judge just didn't deliver.
    • 4/5
      I found this a very well written crime novel with the requisite court room tension and unpredictable follow up. The perspective of a judge is somewhat unique in current literature, and gives this narrative a boost beyond the ordinary. While giving the reader insight into the inner workings of a criminal trial, it also highlights the tensions encountered by the judges who sit on the bench. This is more than worthy of a read, especially for fans of court room drama.This novel was received in e-book format from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
    • 4/5
      [book: The Hanging Judge] by [author: Michael Ponsor] is really two stories in one book. Ponsor dedicated his book to the memory of both Dominic Daly and James Halligan who were "hanged by mistake" June 5, 1806, at Northampton, Massachusetts. For me, a mistake is reaching for the salt instead of the pepper, or maybe confusing the diet soda for the sweetened beverage. But, hanging as an accident? Not so much. That seems like an act of such magnitude that no one could possibly do that when he really wanted to do something else instead. Mistakes can be corrected. Hanging is forever. However, that is how Daly and Halligan are remembered. On the basis of very little, if any, concrete evidence, two innocent men were hanged because of the perspective of justice rather than the hardcore evidence the crime which led to it.Edgar "Peach" Delgado and Ginger Daley O'Connor did not know each other. All they did together was walk on the same street at the same time when both were murdered in a drive-by shooting. Edgar Delgado was the target; Ginger O'Connor was mistakenly at the wrong place at the wrong time. It didn't matter that Ginger, a pediatric nurse, just wanted to pet a dog she saw in the street. She was just as dead as Delgado who was the intended victim. An investigation was set in motion to bring the murderer to justice, and this is where matters got more interesting and revert back to the justice of 1806 when someone's hunch could be all it took to find an accused man guilty of whatever crime was handy. Back in 1806 all it might take to throw suspicion on someone was for him to be a stranger in town. In the present day, all that was needed was a few bad marks on a record, and guilt could be assumed. Which is how Clarence "Moon" Hudson became the primary suspect in the murder of Delgado and O'Connor. He was the perfect fit for the profile of a killer, and he knew "Peach" Delgado well enough to have a motive assigned to him. Hudson said he was innocent, but with his background the only one who was convinced of his innocence was his wife, and her word was discounted simply because she was his wife.This forms the basis of the case that is prosecuted in **The Hanging Judge**, and it's hard to believe that this is Ponsor's first novel. The story follows the judge in the case, David Norcross, as he has to deal with issues surrounding the case. Add to that the complication of a woman, Clare Lindemann, who Norcross meets under unusual circumstances and definitely wants to get to know better, and there are twists and turns in the story that give a more realistic picture of what a sitting judge goes through while on the bench than most courtroom novels explain. It is not simply a matter of ruling on objections, or instructing a jury. Even a judge's conversations outside the courtroom can pose problems for a case he is hearing should something he says or a reference he makes be taken out of context or simply used against him. I was impressed with the way Ponsor introduced issues central to the trial, and resolved how both sides of the story were examined. What most impressed me about **The Hanging Judge** was Ponsor's characterization of David Norcross. How seriously Norcross takes his position as a Federal Judge, and how his assumption of that responsibility affects his life in both large and small ways brought a perspective to that job I had not considered before. Norcross became, for me, the image of what I want a judge to be,no matter how difficult his decisions are to make as opposed to a judge less concerned about interpreting the law as it was intended to be applied. For that reason, I hope Ponsor is planning more novels in this vein wherein David Norcross will be tested ethically thereby giving his story more than one level of consideration. I believe Ponsor has the writing talent to build upon a judge who has heart as well as some issues he needs to confront, hopefully with the help of Clare Lindemann. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys courtroom drama and a mystery that kept me guessing until the end.
    • 3/5
      I received a review copy of The Hanging Judge through Net Galley.com.The Hanging Judge by Michael Posner is a competently written book. Set in Western Massachusetts, it is the story of a murder trial. The plotting and details are good and the story feels accurate but somehow the writing does not come alive. I put the book down halfway through.
    • 3/5
      This story opens with an introduction to Peach and a tiny glimpse of his life and that of Ginger's as she is on her way to work in a clinic. These introductions end with the two of them lying dead in the street. What follows is not only the police arresting their suspect and the trial determining guilt or innocence, but also a look at the lives of those involved with the trial. The author gives us a view of the lives of the accused person's wife and family, those of the victims, the witness's and their families as well as that of the lawyers, judge and police involved with the case. For me, the story was anatomically correct, but something was missing. I couldn't relate to the characters and wasn't moved by the events of their lives as I should have been.