Final Verdict

First published in 1962

This is the biography of American journalist, novelist and screenwriter Adela Rogers St. Johns’ father, Earl Rogers, a renowned Los Angeles criminal defense lawyer in the early 20th century.

St. Johns draws on a succession of her father’s well-known court trials, including the trial that centered on perhaps the most famous lawyer-client disagreements recorded in legal history: those that developed between Clarence Darrow, indicted for attempted jury bribery in Los Angeles in 1912, and Earl Rogers himself.

St. Johns’ fascinating book was adapted for a TNT television film of the same name in 1991, starring Treat Williams as Earl Rogers and Olivia Burnette as the young Adela Rogers St. Johns.