Marshall Croddy

On a chilly Monday morning in 1935, a young maid opened the garage door of a Southern California seaside villa onto a grim scene. Her employer, a popular motion picture comedienne, lay dead in the front seat of her expensive automobile. Within hours, the news of Thelma Todd's death was making headlines throughout the nation. Was it murder, suicide, or accident? Cast against the background of Hollywood and Los Angeles, the film industry and the growing metropolis, her death baffled both the public and the investigating authorities. After numerous attempts to solve the mystery over the last eighty years, a powerful myth remains, obscuring the facts of the case as well as the character of Thelma herself. For the first time, however, the mystery of Thelma Todd's death will unfold as it originally did in 1935. Not only does Testimony of a Death narrate the events of that December but it also explores the forces and personalities central to the tragedy. The book examines the various contexts of Todd's death, including the motion picture business in its Golden Age and the city of Los Angeles hovering on the verge of its greatness. It looks beyond the legends and distortions to the darker reality that lies beneath the myths.

Criminal Justice in America 5th Edition, is the most comprehensive secondary criminal justice text. Our most popular publication, Criminal Justice in America is the most comprehensive secondary text available on the subjects of criminal law, procedure, and criminology. It can serve as a text for an entire law-related education course, or as a supplement for civics, government, or contemporary-issues courses. Its extensive readings are supported by: Directed DiscussionsRole PlaysMock TrialsCooperative and Interactive ExercisesActivities to Involve Outside Resource ExpertsResearch Activities for Students to Use the Library or InternetThe Student Edition is divided into six units: Crime covers elements of crimes, violent crime, gangs, property crime, inchoate crimes, hate crimes, computer crimes, white-collar crime, crimes against the justice system, legal defenses, methods for measuring crime, victims' rights, and the history of crime in America. Police explores local police, attitudes toward police, community policing, criminal investigations, forensic science, search and seizure, Miranda, the exclusionary rule, racial profiling, corruption, use of force, policing the police, and the history of law enforcement. The Criminal Case examines courts, judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys, plea bargaining, and the rights of criminal defendants. Most of the unit explores a hypothetical criminal case from arrest through trial. Corrections looks into sentencing, prisons, alternatives to prison, capital punishment, theories of punishment, the history of corrections, and debates such as those over crack-cocaine sentencing and the high number of persons behind bars. Juvenile Justice explores the separate system for juveniles and examines delinquency, status offenses, steps in a juvenile case, rights of juveniles, school searches, sentencing of juveniles, waiver to adult court, juvenile corrections, how the system developed, and current debates. Solutions looks at debates over the causes of crime, racism in the justice system, crime in schools, vigilantism, policy options to reduce crime and to make the system fairer, and options for individual citizens.