You don't have to do the crime to do the time

Jingle Jangle's first Costco book signing is next weekend:

Signings follow in Carson City on July 16, 17, & 18, and in Sparks on July 24. Costco members in the Reno area should take advantage of these opportunities to try to obtain some inside scoop from the author about the December 1991 murder of Kim Ancona in Phoenix's CBS Lounge, where Jim's cousin, Ray Krone, regularly played darts and drank beer.
    Be forewarned, however, he's not likely to tell you definitely who he thinks really killed Ancona; you're going to have to read the book (or talk to someone who did and is willing to tell you).
    Costco's price for this $24.95 book will be only $15.99. In stock beginning July 5 at the Carson City, Reno, and Sparks stores.
    If you aren't near those Costco stores but want to read Jingle Jangle, visit the publisher's store on the web.

And, while you're in the Broken Bench Press store, order a copy of Steve Glossin's fabulous Saddam Hussein-era novel, Prophecy of the Medallion.
    I've been thinking lately, it's about time I enjoyed this great read again myself.

Criminal justice often stinks

Part Two of Jim Rix's true crime book, Jingle Jangle, presents a number of essays critical of the "criminal justice game" relative to his cousin's case:

Part Two: The Game
Chapter 12. Doing Time
Chapter 13. Hometowned
Chapter 14. What to Do?
Chapter 15. Ethics
Chapter 16. Ouija Science
Chapter 17. Puppet Show
Chapter 18. Whorehouse
Chapter 19. The Color of Justice
Chapter 20. Dingle Dangle
Chapter 21. Baby Blue
Catch-22. The Gila

Yesterday, for Costco purchasers particularly interested in aspects of Part Two, I penned a couple of limerix suitable for Jim to inscribe in their book:

The obscene self-reliance
Of the men of junk science
    Assuages all doubt
    So juries go out
And assent their guilty compliance

Criminal justice often stinks
Convicting the innocent more than it thinks
    Reasonable doubt
    Thrown out
And the jury all go for drinks

Inscriptions of Rix's limerix

At the Costco book signings, the author of Jingle Jangle plans to inscribe a limerix appropriate to the apparent interest of each purchaser:

The foibles of the jury?

Cop says he killed her
Bitemark experts concur
    Defense creates doubt
    Jury can't figure it out
Sends Ray Krone to stir

Rix's own role as a contemporary Sherlock Holmes?

Cops catch a snaggletooth
I become a sleuth
    Cops claim he bit
    Evidence doesn't fit
I'm amazed at the truth

The immediate efficacy of DNA in winning his cousin's release?

Evidence a bite mark
Experts to jury bark
    DNA
    Saves the Day
Bite mark analysis a lark

Jingle Jangle as a whodunit?

Cousin Ray did the time
Who did the crime?
    Read ‘tween the lines
    Discover the signs
Solve this riddled rhyme

Other suspects?

The story of the Snaggletooth Killer
Is a real whodunit thriller
    But was it Ray
    Or two women gay
Or the man doing time in the chiller?

Rix's limerix

Jingle Jangle's author has penned a couple of limerix¹ himself:

The Snaggletooth Killer did the crime
But my cousin Ray Krone did the time.
    The cops did the frame
    So friends did the same.
Now Ray's sipping tequila and lime.

The author's cousin did the time.
But who did the horrible crime?
    If you read 'tween the lines
    You'll discover the signs
To solve this mysterious rhyme.

_______________

1. The author chooses the plural form limerix (like "one deer"/"many deer") over limerixes [or limerices!—see comment from Brendan, for which thanks]. Plural limerix enjoys the advantage of sounding like plural limericks (while suffering the misfortune of not looking plural).

Jingle Jangle in exactly 15 words

Jim Rix's withering critique of our criminal justice system is a book not only for the criminal justice section in libraries and bookstores, but also for the true crime section. As a true crime account of Ray Krone's wrongful conviction for the murder of Kim Ancona, 15 words capture Jingle Jangle's most intriguing aspect:

Possibility that an innocent man took the fall to free another equals the perfect crime.

Order a copy of Jingle Jangle: The Perfect Crime Turned Inside Out today at the special discount price....

Lethal injection is the wrong debate

Ray Krone, the subject of Jim Rix's true crime book, Jingle Jangle: The Perfect Crime Turned Inside Out, yesterday published an article in the San Francisco Chronicle.

The article, Lethal injection is the wrong debate, begins:

The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments last week in Baze vs. Rees, which challenges the constitutionality of execution by lethal injection.

While the court wrestles with technical issues concerning the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment, there's a much larger reason our country is rethinking the death penalty: the possibility of sentencing to death and executing an innocent human being.

and concludes:

So while the U.S. Supreme Court contemplates whether or not killing a person with a particular combination of chemicals is cruel and unusual punishment, all of us should recognize a much larger, more obvious fact: If sentencing to death and possibly executing an innocent person isn't cruel and unusual punishment, nothing is.

Quite literally, I'm living proof of that.

Way to go, Ray! Thanks for your eloquent fight against America's continuing to flaunt the civilized world by putting people to death.

The top 10 reasons to read this book

10 It’s the story of Ray Krone, who was convicted for a 1991 murder he didn’t commit. Ten years later he became the 100th Death Row exoneree when DNA implicated a convicted sex offender.

“A must for readers of true crime and anyone wondering why so many innocent people are convicted in America. The book satisfies from start to finish, from the opening of Ray Krone’s horror story, through the compelling analysis of what went wrong and on to the startling conclusion...” –Sister Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking and The Death of Innocents

Broken Bench Press web site nearly ready

This week I finally cut over the Broken Bench Press web site from old HTML to XHTML/CSS. I invite you to check it out and, if you would be so kind as to do so, give me some feedback.

My connection to the press? Jim Rix, the author of Jingle Jangle: The Perfect Crime Turned Inside Out, is a friend of fifty years (since we were freshmen in high school). I've followed the story of his cousin Ray Krone's false conviction for murder since about 1994, and I became the manuscript's editor immediately after becoming its biggest fan about four years ago. One thing led to another, including the web site.

You ask: "Is Jim self-publishing Jingle Jangle?" Well, let's put it this way, he owns Broken Bench Press.

Note: the web site is still a bit touchy when browsed with Microsoft's noncompliant Internet Explorer. I'm still putting in hacks to try to get around IE's problems. And I've now learned from a friend that Apple's Apache browser doesn't render the site as I intended. I think that truly professional web designers deserve whatever big bucks they make creating web pages that all browsers can render more or less as intended. I'm not confident that I'm young enough or strong enough to do it.