Unequal Justice

In 1985, handyman Wayne Dumond was accused of raping the daughter of a prominent Arkansas businessman. Not long after Dumond was released on bail, two masked gunmen broke into his home, bound and castrated him, and left him to die. His school-aged sons returned home in time to save Dumond's life, but he was later convicted and imprisoned for life.Jack Hill, a Jonesboro, Arkansas television newsman who had been looking into the shenanigans of the sheriff of St. Francis County, began investigating the Dumond case. He found an appalling trail of evil and corruption so widespread that even then-Governor Bill Clinton was forced to address it. Hill discovered that Dumond's severed testicles were taken by the sheriff, who displayed them like a trophy. After DNA tests proved Dumond was not the rapist, Hill pressed Clinton for clemency. The governor refused, even after his own parole board recommended that Dumond be released. It turned out that Clinton was a cousin of the rape victim and a political ally of the prosecutor who put Dumond away. When Clinton ran for president, he turned the case over to the lieutenant governor, who reduced Dumond's sentence.

Guy Reel, Ph.D., is associate professor of mass communication at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, S.C. A former newspaper reporter and editor for The Commercial Appeal of Memphis, Tenn., Reel teaches journalism and mass communication and has written extensively about issues in journalism and communication history. He is author of The National Police Gazette and the Making of the Modern American Man, 1879-1906 (2006), a study of portrayed masculinities in nineteenth-century tabloids. He received his Ph.D. from Ohio University, his master’s from the University of Memphis, and his undergraduate degree from the University of Tennessee.