[1][2] As described by Sherryl Connelly of the New York Daily News,[3] When activist lawyer Teresa Paget takes on Rennell Price's case, his execution date is only 59 days off.

Price and his older brother, both crack dealers, were found guilty of murdering 9-year-old Thuy Sey.

The horrific crime is 15 years in the past, and the tony law firm that laggardly pursued Rennell's appeals pro bono has dropped the case as hopeless.

Teresa quickly determines his original lawyer, a cocaine addict, was criminally ineffectual (he has since been disbarred).

She also puts together a convincing argument that Rennell is, in fact, retarded.Sherryl Connelly of the New York Daily News said that "Patterson too fully explores the political climate that predisposes judges against defendants in death penalty appeals" and that he "wallows in the legal complexities".