Hoppe, Sherry Lee. A Matter of Conscience: Redemption of a Hometown Hero, Bobby Hoppe.Nashville: Wakestone Press, 2011.
In a nutshell: A Matter of Conscience is about the trial of Bobby Hoppe. 31 years after shooting a man to death the football hero is finally brought to justice.
The first thing I have to say, just to get it out there, is that this is not a neutral, unbiased portrayal of one man’s fall from grace and subsequent redemption. The author fully acknowledges that in her forward. Written by his widow, Sherry Lee Hoppe, Bobby Hoppe is portrayed as a deeply religious man heavy with guilt and regret; a vehemently repentant mama’s boy. Subsequently, from page one his victim, Don Hudson, is painted as the super villain, the guy everyone would have gunned down if Hoppe hadn’t done it first.
Despite his widow’s insistence Hoppe was an angel I had a hard time believing in the depth of Hoppe’s alleged guilt since he never came forward with his self defense claim when the crime was first committed in 1957. True, he may have lived with “demons” for 31 years but he didn’t give much thought to Hudson’s family in that entire time. He probably would have kept his silence indefinitely had it not been for the victim’s family and their never-ending search for justice.
What A Matter of Conscience does really well is paint a socioeconomic picture of North Chattanooga, Tennessee in the late 1950s. Football and bootlegging were the heaven and hell of the day. As a young man in the poverty stricken south you were involved in one or the other. You either played a hero’s game or did the work of the devil. Both earned you a reputation worth fighting for.
But, probably the best aspect to A Matter of Conscience is the heart of the story – the trial. Ms. Hoppe takes you into the court room, puts you behind the defense table, and allows you to have intimate access to every nuance of her husband’s difficult case. Hoppe’s defense team was mesmerizing and the trial, mesmerizing.
~*LunaSea*~ 