It is the twenty-second year of Nelson Mandela's imprisonment and a country is gripped with civil unrest. In the small, conservative town of Upington, in South Africa's Northern Cape, a black policeman is beaten to death and his body burned during a riot. Twenty-five black citizens, from teenage boys to an elderly couple, are all accused of the same crime: the murder of Lucas Sethwala, with a common purpose. After a two-year trial, the 'Upington 25' are convicted of his murder; and a year later, fourteen of them are sentenced to death.Andrea Durbach and the other members of the legal team took on the case after the twenty-five were convicted of murder. Their challenge was to persuade the Upington Supreme Court not to impose mandatory death sentences - without having been lawyers to the accused during the initial trial. They had only a matter of weeks to sort through thousands of court documents, to get to know each of the accused and, after the death sentences had been handed down, to mount an effective appeal.'A Common Purpose' tells the remarkable story of the accused, and also the story of the young white woman who became their lawyer. It tells of a country undergoing vast change and the painful process of reconciliation with a savage past. It unravels a trial of personal and political complexity that ends in the assassination of one of the defense lawyers and the eventual exile of another to Australia. And it conveys the horror and inhumanity of life on Death Row.
Product Identifiers
Publisher
Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN-10
0826413307
ISBN-13
9780826413307
eBay Product ID (ePID)
1865116
Product Key Features
Author
Andrea Durbach
Publication Name
Common Purpose : the Story of the Upington 25
Format
Hardcover
Language
English
Publication Year
2002
Type
Textbook
Number of Pages
272 Pages
Dimensions
Item Length
9.2in
Item Height
1in
Item Width
6.2in
Item Weight
19.4 Oz
Additional Product Features
Lc Classification Number
Hv6535.S73u653 2002
Reviews
"This is a passionate and profound account of struggling for justice in the dangerous dying days of apartheid. . . Andrea Durbach is one of a small band of truly brave lawyers who saved black lives at the peril of messing up their own. A moving an insightful human rights story."--Geoffrey Robertson, QC, Moving, elegant...A memorable dispatch from the frontlines of those who fought for justice in the beleaguered days of apartheid., "A spry and poignant evocation of our legal system at its worst--and at its best." --Judge Albie Sachs, Constitutional Court of South Africa
Copyright Date
2002
Target Audience
Scholarly & Professional
Topic
Sociology / General, General, Sociology / Marriage & Family