The Contested Murder Of Latasha Harlins: Justice, Gender, And The Origins Of The La Riots

In The Contested Murder of Latasha Harlins, Brenda Stevenson tells the dramatic story of an earlier trial, a turning point on the road to the 1992 riot. On March 16, 1991, fifteen-year-old Latasha Harlins, an African American who lived locally, entered the Empire Liquor Market at 9172 South Figueroa Street in South Central Los Angeles. Behind the counter was a Korean woman named Soon Ja Du. Latasha walked to the refrigerator cases in the back, took a bottle of orange juice, put it in her backpack, and approached the cash register with two dollar bills in her hand-the price of the juice. Moments later she was face-down on the floor with a bullet hole in the back of her head, shot dead by Du. Joyce Karlin, a Jewish Superior Court judge appointed by Republican Governor Pete Wilson, presided over the resulting manslaughter trial. A jury convicted Du, but Karlin sentenced her only to probation, community service, and a $500 fine. The author meticulously reconstructs these events and their aftermath, showing how they set the stage for the explosion in 1992--Www.Amazon.com.

• | Author: Brenda E. Stevenson
• | Publisher: Oxford University Press
• | Publication Date: Sep 01, 2015
• | Number of Pages: 448 pages
• | Language: English
• | Binding: Paperback
• | ISBN-10: 0190231017
• | ISBN-13: 9780190231019