Rush to Freedom

In 2009, two men who'd been incarcerated for twelve years were released from prison. Exonerated for the murder they'd been convicted of in 1997, they were paid over two million dollars in compensation from the state of Texas, and one of them was even named Texan of the Year by The Dallas Morning News.

Some would see this as justice finally getting it right. In actuality, this is a shocking twist on how crime pays.

But if they were guilty, how did their conviction get overturned? True crime book Rush to Freedom sets the record straight once and for all. Reviewing the original court case as well as the initial police reports, a shaky confession, and interviews, author Hal Hayes shows how the plan by Claude Simmons's family to shift the blame for the murder to another suspect succeeded. Even more unsettling, Hayes unearths potentially damning evidence of how the Dallas District Attorney's office was so eager for the positive press attached to exonerations that obvious issues with Alonzo Hardy's belated confession to the murder were staunchly overlooked.

Rush to Freedom is a riveting exposé on how the system that initially got it right was then used to get it wrong.