As a journalist, Brian Patrick O'Donoghue knew how to track thin threads of evidence to yield a larger picture of the truth. As a teacher at the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF), he ignited in his Investigative Reporting students devotion to pursuing the facts. Together,
…more they helped to bring freedom to four young men convicted of murder.
The investigative trail from arrest to release unfolded over several years and involved an ever-larger cast of characters. The students, who changed every semester, propelled the investigation with their varied skills and interests. The detectives were essential characters. Witnesses and family members led the investigating students to still others who might have information. When O'Donoghue and his students interested the Alaska Innocence Project, the story turned and unfolded like a legal thriller, with many lawyers taking center stage. At times, I was tempted to take notes to keep the characters straight. Yet, in the end, I saw that all the characters, both those who inhibited justice and those who pursued it, deserved to be named.
With all the characters and all the information uncovered, the story still moves along at a good pace. O'Donoghue offers a few unnecessary backstories but keeps the reader engaged with the next morsel of information and then the next right to the end of the book.
Taken as a whole, the book offers three interwoven themes. First, the need for equal justice under the law. This is closely tied to a second theme revolving around prejudice. Local Athabascan people testified to slights and injuries replicating those of Blacks or Mexicans in the lower forty-eight. Finally, it takes power to enforce unequal and prejudiced treatment. The powers vested in elected and appointed officials can be augmented by the forces of fear and prejudice present in almost any community.
"The Fairbanks Four: Murder, Injustice, and the Birth of a Movement" isn't just a book about the power applied for unjust ends. It's also a story infused with hope. It reminds us that wherever injustice is found, there can also be people who will work tirelessly and in concert with others to right the scales of justice again. (less)
