White and Williams Partner, Randy Maniloff, recently interviewed Alex Hortis on his new book, The Witch of New York, for the ABA Journal.
The article discusses the second book written by crime historian and constitutional lawyer, Hortis, which focuses on the “cursed birth of tabloid justice,” and the beginning of the public’s bloodthirsty hunger for true crime entertainment. Hortis’ piece takes a look into one of the greatest, and highly documented injustices in a court case from the 1800s: the case of Polly Bodine.
Despite being almost 200 years old, this case remains relevant to the current culture of tabloid media and true crime fanatics taking harrowing stories of murder and turning them into public entertainment.
In his interview with Hortis, Maniloff explores the background of the case, the true details that were hidden by greed and competition in the local publications and how the facts became distorted as public interest increased. Maniloff and Hortis also discuss the true fault that the press holds in convoluting the facts of this trial. Not only was there initial bias in the arrest, and complete mistreatment during the trial itself, but the contributions from local news publications made Polly Bodine lose all public support.
This interview is just one of the many that Maniloff has conducted over the years, including: Judge Judy, John Grisham, James Patterson, Scott Turow, Ambassador Samantha Power, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Secretary Leon Panetta, Preet Bharara, Vernon Jordan, Henry Winkler and most recently, Retired Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer.
To read more about Maniloff’s interview with Alex Hortis, click here.