phplay88 online casino Spencer Lawton Jr., D.A. in ‘Midnight in the Garden’ Case, Dies at 81
Spencer Lawton Jr., whose achievements as a reform-minded district attorney in Savannah, Ga., were overshadowed by his role as the lead prosecutor in the murder case featured in the best-selling book “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil,” died on Nov. 13 at his home in Savannah. He was 81.
His wife, Ann Woolner, said the cause was cardiovascular disease.
Mr. Lawton served as district attorney for Chatham County, Ga., from 1981 to 2009, a tenure in which he combined a tough-on-crime message with a pioneering program to provide help to victims and witnesses.
After recognizing that the criminal justice system, which pits the government against the defendant, often left victims and witnesses as an afterthought, he created an office to give them counseling and resources as they navigated a labyrinth that they usually had not chosen to enter.
His Victim-Witness Assistance Program swiftly became a model in other jurisdictions, first around Georgia and eventually nationwide.
Mr. Lawton’s reforms, impressive as they were, did not make him a nationally known name. Instead, fame came from an unwelcome source: John Berendt’s “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil,” a partly fictionalized true-crime narrative, published in 1994, that spent 216 weeks on the New York Times best-seller list.
The book centers on the 1981 murder of a Savannah man named Danny Hansford by a wealthy antiques dealer, James Arthur Williams. According to Mr. Williams, he shot Mr. Hansford, his lover, at his home in self-defense after Mr. Hansford had flown into a rage.
We are having trouble retrieving the article content.
Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access.
Already a subscriber? Log in.
Want all of The Times? Subscribe.phplay88 online casino