Bringing Ben Home

A Murder, a Conviction, and the Fight to Redeem American Justice

By: Barbara Bradley Hagerty

Narrated by: Barbara Bradley Hagerty

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 broken: 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 narratives: 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.

Outstanding

Outstanding investigation which will lead to a phenomenal documentary of series. Perfectly written and this looks ready!!

Absolutely engrossing. Hard to let it go even for a moment.

I liked everything about the book and the reading was excellent. Many thanks to the author.

Profoundly well written, incredible and timely story

Our justice system has been anything but for much of the history of this nation. It is a racist, caste driven system that assumes guilt before innocence unless you’re wealthy and white. The story of Ben Spencer is a story that could describe thousands of American prisoners. This is a story that needs to be heard all over this country. The author did a masterful job of keeping the listener/reader enthralled with the story while not skimping on any of the facts and history of this case and the overall innocence movement. Her experience reporting for NPR was clearly evident in how thorough this book was. Overall, this was one of the best books I’ve read or listened to in years.

Couldn’t stop listening!!

Inspiring, heart wrenching…. A thorough excavation of the criminal justice system interwoven with the riveting story of a wrongfully incarcerated man. This book has been life changing. I have been educated. I am so grateful to the author for how she has shined the light of truth into the darkest recesses of the courts and police stations. I am hopeful this book will serve as a catalyst for the continued evolution of our justice system…. So that it can actually be just.

Very well written and narrated.

The level of detail and research that went into this book to tell the story of Ben Spencer is just amazing. It is very well written and narrated. One can only feel dismayed that an innocent man spent so many years in prison for a crime he did not commit, and yet never lost faith and hope that he would one day be freed. To those that put him there in the first place and then did everything they could to keep him there - shame on you. I wish you could be held accountable.