Rogues: True Stories of Grifters, Killers, Rebels and Crooks

Keefe introduces the reader to defense attorney Judy Clarke, with her speech at the trial of Dzhokhar (or Jahar) Tsarnaev. Tsarnaev, together with his older brother Tamerlan, successfully carried out a bombing at the 2013 Boston Marathon, the “worst domestic terrorist attack since September 11” (257). Clarke has made her fame defending infamous and indisputably guilty criminals facing the death penalty, including the Unabomber. She is deeply opposed to the death penalty and obsessed with human motivation, seeking to understand what drives her clients to commit unspeakable acts.

After growing uncomfortable with private law practice, Clarke made a name for herself by defending federal death penalty cases. Her first major win was the 1993 trial of Susan Smith, who murdered her two children by driving her car into a lake. Clarke contextualized Smith’s horrific act as the product of a lifetime of abuse and mental health struggles. Smith was sentenced to life imprisonment.

Despite her dedication to her clients, Clarke does not take an adversarial approach to prosecution witnesses. At Tsarnaev’s trial, the case testimony was particularly horrific, as some of Tsarnaev’s victims were young children. Prosecutors insisted that Jahar was a radical Islamist like his brother, pointing to a written confession with references to US policy toward Muslims.