Tucker, John C. 1934–

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Tucker, John C. 1934–

PERSONAL: Born 1934. Education: Princeton University, undergraduate degree, 1955.

ADDRESSES: Office—c/o Author Mail, Carroll & Graf Publishers, 245 W. 17th St., 11th Fl., New York, NY 10011-5300.

CAREER: Practiced law in Chicago, IL, until 1985.

WRITINGS:

May God Have Mercy: A True Story of Crime and Punishment, W.W. Norton (New York, NY), 1997.

Trial and Error: The Education of a Courtroom Lawyer (memoir), Carroll & Graf Publishers (New York, NY), 2003.

SIDELIGHTS: John C. Tucker was a retired criminal lawyer when he wrote his first book, May God Have Mercy: A True Story of Crime and Punishment. It tells the true story of the rape and murder in Virginia of nineteen-year-old Wanda Fay Thompson, and the conviction and punishment of her brother-in-law, Ronald Keith Coleman. Coleman had a prior conviction for rape, and this made him the primary suspect in the investigation. After his arrest, he was represented by two public defenders who had never previously tried murder cases. As Tucker tells his readers, there were several discrepancies in the prosecution's case against Coleman—including the fact that the victim's stab wounds were four inches deep when the defendant only had a three-inch knife, and that Thompson's door showed pry marks when she would have admitted Coleman into her home voluntarily due to their relationship by marriage.

Tucker also tells of the work by many attorneys to appeal Coleman's conviction before he could be put to death in Virginia's electric chair. They did not succeed, and Coleman was electrocuted on May 20, 1992. A Publishers Weekly reviewer noted Tucker's "sensitive rendering of the quality of the effort on Coleman's behalf and of the dignity" of the accused as he met his end. Christine A. Moesch hailed the book in the Library Journal as "a gripping account of what may well have been a travesty of justice." "Tucker's sterling account … humanizes the death penalty issue," concluded Ellen Beauregard in Booklist.

Tucker's memoir, Trial and Error: The Education of a Courtroom Lawyer, recounts his career, cases, including pro bono cases, and two appearances before the U.S. Supreme Court. Among his most notable cases is his defense of the Chicago Eight, protestors at the 1968Democratic National Convention, during which police violence overshadowed the protests. Other clients included Muhammad Ali and mobsters, and many of Tucker's cases were based on civil rights issues.

A Kirkus Reviews contributor called Trial and Error"an eminently instructive guide for law students, and for general readers an authentic version of a world they normally see only through the meretricious lens of TV courtroom dramas."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Tucker, John C., Trial and Error: The Education of a Courtroom Lawyer, Carroll & Graf Publishers (New York, NY), 2003.

PERIODICALS

Booklist, September 15, 1997, Ellen Beauregard, review of May God Have Mercy: A True Story of Crime and Punishment, p. 186; March 15, 2003, Vernon Ford, review of Trial and Error: The Education of a Courtroom Lawyer, p. 1260.

Kirkus Reviews, review of Trial and Error, p. 134.

Legal Information Alert, October, 2004, Donna Tuke Heroy, review of Trial and Error, p. 8.

Library Journal, September 15, 1997, Christine A. Moesch, review of May God Have Mercy, p. 90.

Publishers Weekly, August 11, 1997, review of May God Have Mercy, p. 398; January 27, 2003, review of Trial and Error, p. 248.

Trial, August, 2003, Jerome F. O'Neill, review of Trial and Error, p. 68.