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Bringing Ben Home: A Murder, a Conviction, and the Fight to Redeem American Justice
How states are making their legal systems more equitable, seen through the story of a Black man falsely imprisoned for thirty years for murder.
In 1987, Ben Spencer, a twenty-two-year-old Black man from Dallas, was convicted of murdering white businessman Jeffrey Young—a crime he didn’t commit. From the day of his arrest, Spencer insisted that it was “an awful mistake.” The Texas legal system didn’t see it that way. It allowed shoddy police work, paid witnesses, and prosecutorial misconduct to convict Spencer of murder, and it ignored later efforts to correct this error. The state’s bureaucratic intransigence caused Spencer to spend more than half his life in prison.
Eventually independent investigators, new witness testimony, the foreman of the jury that convicted him, and a new Dallas DA convinced a Texas judge that Spencer had nothing to do with the killing, and in 2021 he was released from prison.
As Spencer’s fight to clear himself demonstrates, our legal systems are expedience is more important than the truth. That is starting to change as states across the country implement new efforts to reduce wrongful convictions, and one of the states leading the way is Texas.
Award-winning journalist Barbara Bradley Hagerty has spent years digging into this issue, and she has immersed herself in Spencer’s case. She has combed police files and court records, interviewed dozens of witnesses, and had extensive conversations with Spencer, and in Bringing Ben Home she threads together two how an innocent Black man got caught up in and couldn’t escape a legal system that refused to admit its mistakes; and what Texas and other states are doing to address wrongful convictions to make the legal process more equitable for everyone.
By turns fascinating and enraging, personal and provocative, Bringing Ben Home is the powerful story of one innocent man who refused to admit that he was guilty of murder, and how his plight became part of a paradigm shift in how the legal system thinks about innocence as it institutes new methods to overturn wrongful convictions to better protect people like Ben Spencer.
In 1987, Ben Spencer, a twenty-two-year-old Black man from Dallas, was convicted of murdering white businessman Jeffrey Young—a crime he didn’t commit. From the day of his arrest, Spencer insisted that it was “an awful mistake.” The Texas legal system didn’t see it that way. It allowed shoddy police work, paid witnesses, and prosecutorial misconduct to convict Spencer of murder, and it ignored later efforts to correct this error. The state’s bureaucratic intransigence caused Spencer to spend more than half his life in prison.
Eventually independent investigators, new witness testimony, the foreman of the jury that convicted him, and a new Dallas DA convinced a Texas judge that Spencer had nothing to do with the killing, and in 2021 he was released from prison.
As Spencer’s fight to clear himself demonstrates, our legal systems are expedience is more important than the truth. That is starting to change as states across the country implement new efforts to reduce wrongful convictions, and one of the states leading the way is Texas.
Award-winning journalist Barbara Bradley Hagerty has spent years digging into this issue, and she has immersed herself in Spencer’s case. She has combed police files and court records, interviewed dozens of witnesses, and had extensive conversations with Spencer, and in Bringing Ben Home she threads together two how an innocent Black man got caught up in and couldn’t escape a legal system that refused to admit its mistakes; and what Texas and other states are doing to address wrongful convictions to make the legal process more equitable for everyone.
By turns fascinating and enraging, personal and provocative, Bringing Ben Home is the powerful story of one innocent man who refused to admit that he was guilty of murder, and how his plight became part of a paradigm shift in how the legal system thinks about innocence as it institutes new methods to overturn wrongful convictions to better protect people like Ben Spencer.
463 pages, Kindle Edition
Published August 6, 2024
96 people are currently reading
982 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 35 reviews
August 13, 2024
I want to start off with this book is dense, it’s written so well, but at the same time, it really feels like a non-fiction book meant to teach you something. It’s the kind of book you read and digest every word and that takes time. So I read it slow, 50 pages a day, until I realized I had to sit down and read this book until I finish because it was making me hate any other book I touched in the meantime.
As a former law student, who wanted to become a public defender, and got offered the job, but turned it down, this book was exactly what I needed. It haunted every thought while I was working, reading any other book, driving, basically if I could have been reading instead it’s what I wanted to do.
This book so into such depth of criminal procedure, the issues with all sides, and the cases and precedence that got our criminal justice system to the point it is. You’ll learn so much about criminal trial procedure, criminal investigations, appeals, and the development of the innocence project and DNA testing. It brings everything together so well in each part of the book that it feels like you are there, and you’ll remember all the little details as the story goes on!
As a former law student, who wanted to become a public defender, and got offered the job, but turned it down, this book was exactly what I needed. It haunted every thought while I was working, reading any other book, driving, basically if I could have been reading instead it’s what I wanted to do.
This book so into such depth of criminal procedure, the issues with all sides, and the cases and precedence that got our criminal justice system to the point it is. You’ll learn so much about criminal trial procedure, criminal investigations, appeals, and the development of the innocence project and DNA testing. It brings everything together so well in each part of the book that it feels like you are there, and you’ll remember all the little details as the story goes on!
May 5, 2025
Brilliantly researched and clearly written, no easy feat given the complexity of this case and all of the actors involved. I had the opportunity to attend a small book club with Barb Bradley Hagerty. She is the definition of what a quality, unbiased journalist should be. Her relationships with Ben and his friends, family, and legal team are genuine. Ben’s spirit of hope and faith in god is uplifting and embodies the true spirit of what being human should be. I just hope that one day the Young family can have their peace.
April 26, 2025
This is the best book I will read all year.
August 22, 2025
4.75 stars
June 23, 2025
Not an easy read by any means. At times it was almost like reading a textbook.
An eye opening expose of the judicial system in our country concerning the conviction of innocent people. Stirs up lots of emotions!
An eye opening expose of the judicial system in our country concerning the conviction of innocent people. Stirs up lots of emotions!
October 27, 2024
Great overview of how an innocent person ends up in prison woven into telling one man’s story. If you are interested in this topic, much of this won’t be news to you—and you may have even read some of the source material (Picking Cotton, Junk Science and the American Justice System). A great one-stop shop that ties all the pieces together. But, if you are familiar with the topic, like me, it that meant I wasn’t always excited to pick it up to get back to the story.
September 6, 2024
Mind-blowing. Outrageous. Appalling. Infuriating. I knew there were probably some innocent people incarcerated, but I had no idea how pervasive and systemic these problems in our criminal justice system are. It’s truly shocking. Maybe it’s all the Law & Order, CSI franchises, and other popular police procedurals, but one assumes that investigators, scientists/analysts, and prosecutors are ethical, competent, honest people just trying to get to the truth. This book forces those illusions to fall away, page by tragic page. I read it with eyes wide and mouth agape nearly the entire book — I highly recommend everyone read this. Just wow.
December 3, 2024
Still thinking on this, but here a few takeaways off the top of my head:
1) our criminal justice system is broken.
2) Alex Jefferys’ work has made the world a better place. DNA “fingerprinting” is a game changer.
3) Jim McCloskey is a saint.
4) Shame on Trump’s Supreme Court decision Shinn vs Ramirez. Why even call it a “justice” system?
5) I so take my freedom for granted. Grateful 35 years in prison hasn’t taught me this.
6) The Young family was deprived justice. And two wrongs don’t make a right. If their father was the type of man described in this book, I gotta believe he would not want his children consumed by this, nor would want an innocent man jailed to close a case. I hope they find peace.
6) May Ben Spencer live a long and healthy life and may his time in prison cultivating his inner peace and integrity enable him to savor his freedom and enrich all future life experiences. He certainly deserves it.
1) our criminal justice system is broken.
2) Alex Jefferys’ work has made the world a better place. DNA “fingerprinting” is a game changer.
3) Jim McCloskey is a saint.
4) Shame on Trump’s Supreme Court decision Shinn vs Ramirez. Why even call it a “justice” system?
5) I so take my freedom for granted. Grateful 35 years in prison hasn’t taught me this.
6) The Young family was deprived justice. And two wrongs don’t make a right. If their father was the type of man described in this book, I gotta believe he would not want his children consumed by this, nor would want an innocent man jailed to close a case. I hope they find peace.
6) May Ben Spencer live a long and healthy life and may his time in prison cultivating his inner peace and integrity enable him to savor his freedom and enrich all future life experiences. He certainly deserves it.
June 16, 2024
Excellent examination of how our justice system is broken when it comes to wrongful convictions.
December 4, 2024
I have read this story too many times in too many ways to be in awe of the vast amount of injustice in our justice system. What sets this story apart is the research Hagerty has put into the totality of the arrests/trials/convictions and the blatant unfairness directed towards blacks in our legal systems. This book should be a primer for all first year law students. So so much time, money and effort is put into innocence projects. This could become passe if cases were litigated correctly from the beginning.
DNA has helped but in the case of eye witness convictions it can't always be used.
This story is about a very young, innocent black man who is wrongly convicted based only on lies perpetrated by four people (think, "reward money") and absolutely no physical evidence. Despite spending quite a few years with various people working tirelessly to clear him he is kept in jail for 35 years. Amazingly his wife and child (who wasn't even born when he went to prison) stand by him.
Note: I read this book on my kindle so I was thinking it would never end. But the story ended at 57% and the rest of the book was the citations by the author, so whew. Impactful book.
DNA has helped but in the case of eye witness convictions it can't always be used.
This story is about a very young, innocent black man who is wrongly convicted based only on lies perpetrated by four people (think, "reward money") and absolutely no physical evidence. Despite spending quite a few years with various people working tirelessly to clear him he is kept in jail for 35 years. Amazingly his wife and child (who wasn't even born when he went to prison) stand by him.
Note: I read this book on my kindle so I was thinking it would never end. But the story ended at 57% and the rest of the book was the citations by the author, so whew. Impactful book.
April 24, 2025
When I saw this author on a podcast, I knew I wanted to read this book.
The scariest parts of the book were how easily witnesses lied. It's amazing how identification can be wrong. Another part of the problem with witnesses that I had never thought about was the reward system that encourages them to lie so that they can get the reware that is promised!
A second problem with the justice system is that detectives can be pressured to arrest someone when the evidence is circumstancial by the family members of the victim. Some of the detectives are put under a great deal of pressure to have a high conviction rate to move up in the force.
It was also amazing what a big difference DNA identification made in many cases, although it did not help Ben Spencer.
The book also talks about different cases and where things went wrong. There are many Innocence Projects at law schools, but the first one they mentioned was called Centurian Ministries, who worked for years on getting Ben released. The name of this group comes from the crucifiction of Christ where the Centurian said something like, surely this man has done no wrong.
The scariest parts of the book were how easily witnesses lied. It's amazing how identification can be wrong. Another part of the problem with witnesses that I had never thought about was the reward system that encourages them to lie so that they can get the reware that is promised!
A second problem with the justice system is that detectives can be pressured to arrest someone when the evidence is circumstancial by the family members of the victim. Some of the detectives are put under a great deal of pressure to have a high conviction rate to move up in the force.
It was also amazing what a big difference DNA identification made in many cases, although it did not help Ben Spencer.
The book also talks about different cases and where things went wrong. There are many Innocence Projects at law schools, but the first one they mentioned was called Centurian Ministries, who worked for years on getting Ben released. The name of this group comes from the crucifiction of Christ where the Centurian said something like, surely this man has done no wrong.
December 27, 2024
This book might end up being a five star read for me....I took my time with this one, and read it only when I ran on the treadmill, so it's taken me a couple months to read. I wish I would have dog-eared some pages or taken notes, because there is so much information about the way we try people for crimes, the evidence we use, flaws with our criminal justice system that I wish I retained and could share with others. Ben Spencer's conviction was wrong. The thirty years he spent in prison were also wrong. Barbara Bradley Hagerty's research and ability to tell his story and the odds stacked against him is a superb account of how we have failed to create a system where innocent people should not spend their lives in jail. I ended up staying up late to finish this last night. I wasn't sure - up until the very end- if this would end well for Spencer or not.
September 17, 2024
Utterly brilliant, soul-stirring, astonishingly clear-eyed and impeccably researched, this saga of the fate of the wrongfully convicted within the American justice system is my choice for book of the year. Everyone who has any role in the rule of law and its enforcement needs to read this book. If you've ever been on a jury, attended a trial, or even been given a traffic ticket, you need to read this searing expose of " truth, justice and the American way." I am in awe of all the people involved but especially Ben Spencer whose 30 years of imprisonment did not destroy his spirit or his faith. God bless you, Mr Spencer and many thanks to the author for putting her heart and soul into telling Ben's story.
March 29, 2025
A well-researched account of the wrongful conviction of Ben Spencer, a Dallas man, and his fight for exoneration. All of the ways innocent people are convicted, from the far too common mistakes made by eye witnesses to the purposeful misbehavior of police and prosecutors is discussed. The author also does an excellent job of covering why it's so difficult to overturn these cases. It's unsettling, and in the case of Ben Spencer, who spent 34 years in prison for a crime he didn't commit, and the victim's family who have been robbed of justice, it is truly tragic. I was moved by Ben's strong faith in God through it all and by those who dedicate their lives to helping those who have been failed by our judicial system.
September 23, 2024
Another day, yet another book about wrongful conviction. It really says something about our criminal justice system with the number of books and articles and podcasts about wrongful convictions 🫠
This was another eye-opening account of wrongful conviction - this time the case of Ben Spencer in Dallas, TX.
I had all the usual reactions when I read this type of book - anger, disbelief, rage, frustration, and sadness.
I found this book very interesting because the author provided great descriptions of many factors that lead to wrongful conviction - eyewitness testimony, “testilying”, confirmation bias, etc. I learned some new things! I was also interested in hearing about this case - it’s the first one I’ve learned about where there was not any DNA evidence available. So I’m amazed by the work of Ben Spencer’s team and how they got him out of prison without conclusive DNA evidence. But it’s also disheartening because there are so many people in the same situation as Ben Spencer - but without DNA evidence proving their innocence, they’ll likely never leave prison. (Cue the rage and frustration)
One bright spot was the author’s description of some criminal justice reforms - conviction integrity units (when they have proper autonomy) and disproving some of the fake science commonly used in convictions (e.g., hair analysis).
In short - please read this one. Wrongful conviction happens so much more often than people realize. And I’m always shocked by how little people know about the topic.
Thank you Penguin Random House Audio and Riverhead Books for the gifted copies.
This was another eye-opening account of wrongful conviction - this time the case of Ben Spencer in Dallas, TX.
I had all the usual reactions when I read this type of book - anger, disbelief, rage, frustration, and sadness.
I found this book very interesting because the author provided great descriptions of many factors that lead to wrongful conviction - eyewitness testimony, “testilying”, confirmation bias, etc. I learned some new things! I was also interested in hearing about this case - it’s the first one I’ve learned about where there was not any DNA evidence available. So I’m amazed by the work of Ben Spencer’s team and how they got him out of prison without conclusive DNA evidence. But it’s also disheartening because there are so many people in the same situation as Ben Spencer - but without DNA evidence proving their innocence, they’ll likely never leave prison. (Cue the rage and frustration)
One bright spot was the author’s description of some criminal justice reforms - conviction integrity units (when they have proper autonomy) and disproving some of the fake science commonly used in convictions (e.g., hair analysis).
In short - please read this one. Wrongful conviction happens so much more often than people realize. And I’m always shocked by how little people know about the topic.
Thank you Penguin Random House Audio and Riverhead Books for the gifted copies.
July 10, 2025
This is the perfect book to read if you want to be brought up to speed on the American criminal justice system. I’ve read Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson and listened to podcasts like In the Dark, so I didn’t come across a lot of new information here. In fact, these wrongful conviction stories have so many similarities (unreliable witnesses, tunnel vision, etc.) that it feels as if the exact same thing is happening to different people - which is chilling because of how common it is. I can’t fathom how many more innocent people have been convicted but weren’t lucky enough to be exonerated, and ended up spending the rest of their lives behind bars. It's so heartbreaking to read.
September 25, 2024
No doubt this is one of the best true crime books I've ever read. A fantastic but sad true story about the injustices that can take place within our legal system. The author does an incredible job of leading us though Ben’s nightmare story of how quickly an innocent person can be found guilty and how long a journey it is to right a wrong when after years is proven innocent. Great documentation and notes to back up the history and torment this man was put through. The Author’s Notes were very informative. One of my best reads this year.
October 28, 2024
This book was compelling, education and extremely well written. I listened to the audio book version of it. I thoroughly enjoyed listening to this and found myself learning a lot about the American Crime and Justice system. I would recommend this to someone that likes non-fiction and likes to hear about the life experiences of others.
I have to say it was a slow start, but by the end I was fully invested and felt like I had a stake in the story that was unfolding. Truly a wonderful work of journalism.
I have to say it was a slow start, but by the end I was fully invested and felt like I had a stake in the story that was unfolding. Truly a wonderful work of journalism.
May 17, 2025
Whew…what a read. So eye opening to see the depth of problems in how our judicial system works. In no way am I denigrating the US - our system is better than many or most throughout the world. But when so many innocent people (mostly of color) are languishing for decades in jail - changes must happen. Former reporter Barbara Hagerty has written a very eye opening book.
Thank God for the growth of Innocence Project work throughout our country that finally (after 34 years) obtained justice for Benjamin Spencer an innocent man!
Thank God for the growth of Innocence Project work throughout our country that finally (after 34 years) obtained justice for Benjamin Spencer an innocent man!
July 20, 2025
BRINGING BEN HOME is a thorough examination of the ways in which the American judicial system is broken, told via the story of an innocent man fighting for freedom from incarceration. I’d recommend this to anyone interested in the ways systemic racism, classicism, and more, have affected how ‘justice’ works in the United States.
September 22, 2024
Appalling yet informative about our justice system where wrongful convictions are concerned. Well written and well researched. I hope Ben lives a long and happy life outside the bars - he so deserves it.
October 5, 2024
Highly recommend reading Benjamin Spencer’s story. This book truly opened my eyes to how corrupt the justice system can sometimes be. We have people in jail who have never committed a crime and people on the streets who’ve never had to pay for their crimes. Our justice system needs to be fixed!
April 17, 2025
A compelling story of misjustice woven with a detailed examples of other legal misjustices occurring in the past century.
Unfortunately, this book drags towards the middle-end and could have been about 7-8 chapters shorter.
Unfortunately, this book drags towards the middle-end and could have been about 7-8 chapters shorter.
June 6, 2025
This book is so many things: interesting, maddening, dumbfounding, eye opening, saddening, inspirational, to name a few. Well written and captivating! Worthy of all 5 stars. Definitely recommend reading!
October 28, 2025
This book is about 1/4 the story of Ben Spencer and 3/4 a bunch of other stories and court case information that is sort of relevant, but mostly not really. Had it been a quarter of the length and only about Ben, it would be a 5/5. If you're a history geek or court nerd, it's a win for you.
August 24, 2024
The best book I’ve read this year. Highly recommend.
October 23, 2024
Minuteman. Recommended by Karen P. Skimmed.
January 2, 2025
Very moving, thoughtful, and searing narrative of injustice that is also a quiet celebration of resilience and love.
January 28, 2025
This book is a good reason we need to Change our judicial system. This non-fiction allowed me to realize how many people still sit in prison that are innocent. Something must change.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 35 reviews