Description

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The case of State of Texas vs. Autumn Hills Nursing Homes, Inc. went to trial in a borrowed San Antonio courtroom 25 years ago. It matched a Texas dream team for the defense including Roy Minton, Tom Sartwelle, Mike Ramsey, and Roy Barrera Sr. against a determined (some would say obsessed) young assistant attorney general, David Marks, and his backup team from the state. The jury heard six months of horrifying testimony about catastrophic medical failure when corporate greed trumps medical care. Death Without Dignity is their story, told by a journalist who was allowed the exceedingly rare experience of being not only in the courtroom, but was allowed by the judge to be in chambers when lawyers wrangled out of earshot of the jury - something that had never been allowed any journalist before or since, according to the lead defense lawyer. The case remains today as the longest and most expensive criminal prosecution in Texas history and Death Without Dignity is now a courtroom classic.

About the Author

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Steven Long boasts more than 2,000 hours in the courtroom, more time there than most practicing lawyers acquire in a career. He has covered some of the most important trials of the last two decades, from murder cases, to the white collar madness called Enron. Few can capture the drama of a courtroom quite like him. He has now put his classic Death Without Dignity back in print. The book was honored with a State Bar of Texas Gavel Award. Readers devoured his Out of Control (St. Martin's Press), the story of the Clara Harris murder Case. Every Woman's Nightmare (St. Martin's Press), tells the story of the fairytale marriage and cold blooded murder of Utah's Lori Hacking whose body was left by her husband in a Salt Lake City dump. He recently turned to fiction with Ruby's Passing, a breathtaking saga of crime, demonic possession, and the grandeur of Texas' Big Bend country. Steven and his wife Vicki live in Houston and own Horseback Magazine.