Verdict Denied

Kansas state judge Ben Joel catches a death penalty case involving a local drug dealer with ties to a Mexican cartel. When Ben’s sister is abducted three days before the trial, Judge Joel is told what he must do to save her—cut the defendant loose utilizing a seldom-used judicial tool known as a judgment of acquittal. A call to law enforcement would expose a conflict of interest that would disqualify him from the case and get his sister killed, so Ben plunges into the trial of his life by day, and the dark underworld of the drug trade by night, with the aid of only a few trusted allies.Leonard Ruhl is the pseudonym of a former criminal defense attorney and state and federal prosecutor with years of experience prosecuting serious felony cases including murder and large-scale drug trafficking. Beyond his years as a trial lawyer, Ruhl's legal career is ongoing, but he feels constrained by the rules from revealing any further details here. The author's writing and publishing experience is as a jurist. This is his first work of fiction.