'Wrongly Executed? The Long-Forgotten Context of Charles Sberna's 1939 Electrocution' has received the following author endorsements.
"In this riveting work of forensic literature, Tom Hunt reexamines a 1938 murder trial and demonstrates how the defendant's familial ties to organized crime and the American anarchist movement may well have led to his wrongful execution. Exhaustive research and effortless writing combine to make Wrongly Executed? a must-read not just for true-crime aficionados, but for anyone interested in this unique and colorful chapter in American history. Great stuff, and highly recommended."
- C. Joseph Greaves
author of Hard Twisted and
Tom & Lucky and George & Cokey Flo.
"The Chair... it was the hideous end for felons tried by Thomas E. Dewey’s prosecutors in 1930s New York, whose contempt for due process catapulted defendants to Sing Sing’s death house with assembly line alacrity. For anyone who has pondered the macabre conveyer belt to the death house that symbolized justice in the 1930s, Tom Hunt’s Wrongly Executed? shows the path to the last walk in all its hellish reality. From the prosecution’s contempt for pretrial transparency to the bench’s faulty grip on mercy recommendations, Hunt decodes the secrets of the death penalty that condemned the guilty as well as the innocent to that infamous corridor of prayer, repentance and despair."
- Ellen Poulsen
author of The Case Against Lucky Luciano:
New York’s Most Sensational Vice Trial.
and Don't Call Us Molls: Women of the John Dillinger Gang.
"In dramatic fashion, Hunt weaves the gripping story of Sberna's controversial execution with a well-researched portrait of the social and political dynamics of 1930s New York... Anarchists, Mafia bosses, small-time hoods, tough cops, and zealous prosecutors all figure in a fascinating story that ultimately questions the wisdom of capital punishment... Eight decades after Charles Sberna's controversial execution, Hunt renders a thought-provoking narrative of the political and legal forces that hastened his trip to the electric chair."
- Robert Sberna
author of Badge 387: The Jim Simone Story,
House of Horrors: The Shocking True Story of Anthony Sowell
and What Happened to the Lufthansa Heist Loot.
"Crime and punishment is not black and white. Thomas Hunt’s exploration of Charles Sberna’s 1939 execution takes readers into the gray areas, where the truth often resides. ‘Wrongly Executed?’ is founded on meticulously researched facts and is written with a style that keeps drawing you in. Most of all, [it] is a prime example of the truism: there are three sides to every story."
- Christian Cipollini
author of Lucky Luciano: Mysterious Tales of a Gangland Legend
and Murder Inc.: Mysteries of the Mob's Most Deadly Hit Squad.
