The Balance Of Justice

A novel based on the fascinating life of one of Upstate New York's most remarkable women.In January of 1872, Josephine McCarty was indicted for murder in a shooting on a horse-drawn streetcar in Utica, New York. There were witnesses, and the common consensus was that the woman would hang. Then the governor of New York called a special term of court, and his attorney general sent a high-powered lawyer to aid the prosecution. Why? Perhaps the story was more complex than it appeared.This accounting of Josephine's life offers a window into another place in time, an era when flamboyant architecture and white-gloved manners masked a darker side of society. The facts brought forth in her trial reveal a woman of unfathomable courage struggling in a time when money and influence obliterated the line between villain and victim.