Ross Mackay, The Saga of a Brilliant Criminal Lawyer

The two murder trials held in Toronto in the spring of 1962 only nineteen days apart made Canadian social and legal history. The accused man in each trial, one a pimp who stabbed to death a fellow pimp, the other a thief who killed a policeman in a shootout, were the last two men to be hanged in Canada. In personal terms, for a Toronto criminal lawyer named Ross Mackay, the trials represented just two more episodes in a tumultuous life story. Mackay was the counsel for the accused in both trials, a mere thirty years old when he lost two clients to the gallows. But the trials were far from the last times that Mackay defended accused murderers in the most horrendous circumstances. It's the story of Mackay's dedication to the maxim that every man is entitled to a defence that Jack Batten tells in this book, a story that emerges in all its colour, drama and tragedy, a story of Mackay's courage and the harsh penalties he paid for the often daring and controversial choices he made in life and in the courtroom.

What They SayOther Books By
Prologue, Haunted Dreams
1. Beginnings
2. The School For Smart Boys
3. Gambling and Girls
4. Ross Picks His Specialty
5. Arthur Martin's Influence
6. A Mother's Choice
7. A Change of Plans
8. Something Called Admiralty Law
9. A Fish out of Water
10. Trouble at the Brown Derby
11. Ross Finds Murder
12. The Case Against Arthur Lucas
13. The Cops Nail Their Man
14. Ross Builds His Defence
15. The Old Guys Gang Up On Ross
16. Shootout on the Danforth
17. Second Murder Trial in 19 Days
18. Once More to the Gallows
19. Ross Bottoms Out
20. On the Comeback Trail
21. Ross Builds a Practice
22. The Master of Appeals
23. Life on the Edge
24. Ross and the Subculture
25. Disbarred
26. A Fitful Existence
27. His Life's Blood
28. A Perry Mason Moment
29. The Longest Trial
30. Another Trial
31. Aladdin's Cave
32. The Fluttering Cigarette Paper
33. A Free Man
34. In Decline
35. Handling the Truth
Acknowledgments
About the Author, Jack Batten