{"id":346,"date":"2018-03-10T18:59:29","date_gmt":"2018-03-10T23:59:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/greendoch.com\/finds\/?p=346"},"modified":"2020-12-07T15:07:26","modified_gmt":"2020-12-07T20:07:26","slug":"the-insanity-defense-and-the-mad-murderess-of-shaker-heights-by-william-l-tabac-now-available-for-pre-order","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/greendoch.com\/finds\/?p=346","title":{"rendered":"“The Insanity Defense and the Mad Murderess of Shaker Heights” by William L. Tabac now available to order!"},"content":{"rendered":"

William L. Tabac’s book on the Cremer Young murder (The Insanity Defense and the Mad Murderess of Shaker Heights<\/a>) is now available order on the Kent State University Press’ website and on Amazon\u00a0<\/a>(linkified).<\/p>\n

From the webpage:
\n“By claiming insanity,\u00a0did this Shaker Heights\u00a0housewife get away with\u00a0murder?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

They have no witnesses. They have no case. With this blunt observation, Mariann Colby\u2014an attractive, church-going Shaker Heights, Ohio, mother and housewife\u2014bet a defense psychiatrist that she would not be convicted of murder. A lack of witnesses was not the only problem that would confront the State of Ohio in 1966, which would seek to prosecute her for shooting to death Cremer Young Jr., her son\u2019s nine-year-old playmate: Colby had deftly cleaned up after herself by hiding the child\u2019s body miles from her home and concealing the weapon.<\/p>\n

Thus, this \u201chighly intelligent\u201d woman, as she would be described at her trial, had hedged a little on her wager. Not only were there no witnesses to the crime, but there was not a shred of physical evidence to pin the slaying on her. Under the usual forensic standards, her wager was spot on; the probabilities were that she would get away with it. But as the Shaker Heights police found themselves stymied by an investigation that was going nowhere, Mariann Colby upped the ante a bit. Under intense questioning, she broke down, claiming the gun had accidentally discharged. The state thought it had its capital murder case, but Mariann Colby\u2019s bet against it would be right on the money.<\/p>\n

As her trial unfolds in the book, the imprecision of her insanity defense confounds the judges, and psychiatrists disagree about her diagnosis. To make matters worse, the panel of judges that initially tried Colby was so confused by what they\u2019d heard that they did not reach a decision consistent with the law of the state. This led to a second trial and more conflicting psychiatric opinions, another controversial judgment, and clashing trial outcomes. After reading The Insanity Defense and the Mad Murderess of Shaker Heights,readers\u2014and the many childhood friends of the slain boy whose painful reminiscences are set forth in the book\u2014will contemplate whether Mariann Colby did indeed get away with murder. In addition, those interested in legal history will find much of value in Tabac\u2019s discussions of the case and its use of an insanity defense strategy.”<\/p>\n

About the author:<\/p>\n

“William L. Tabac<\/strong> is a practicing lawyer and emeritus professor of law at Cleveland State University\u2019s Cleveland Marshall College of Law. He has published several law journal articles on a wide range of subjects and written about legal matters for The New York Times Magazine and The Plain Dealer. He was the producer and host of The Law and You, an award-winning Cleveland radio program, and a legal commentator for WKYC-TV.”<\/p>\n

Note: Mr. Tabac is a reader of this blog and I have exchanged a few emails with him. Looking forward to reading his book<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

William L. Tabac’s book on the Cremer Young murder (The Insanity Defense and the Mad Murderess of Shaker Heights) is now available order on the Kent State University Press’ website and on Amazon\u00a0(linkified). From the webpage: “By claiming insanity,\u00a0did this Shaker Heights\u00a0housewife get away with\u00a0murder?\u00a0 They have no witnesses. They have no case. With this … Continue reading “The Insanity Defense and the Mad Murderess of Shaker Heights” by William L. Tabac now available to order!<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[91,79],"tags":[93,15,94,95,92],"class_list":["post-346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-cremer-young","tag-book","tag-cremer-young","tag-kent-state-university-press","tag-mad-murderess-of-shaker-heights","tag-william-l-tabac"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/greendoch.com\/finds\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/greendoch.com\/finds\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/greendoch.com\/finds\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/greendoch.com\/finds\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/greendoch.com\/finds\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=346"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/greendoch.com\/finds\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":351,"href":"http:\/\/greendoch.com\/finds\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346\/revisions\/351"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/greendoch.com\/finds\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/greendoch.com\/finds\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/greendoch.com\/finds\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}