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18 reviews for:
Actual Innocence: When Justice Goes Wrong and How to Make it Right
Jim Dwyer, Peter Neufeld, Barry Scheck
4.09 AVERAGE
18 reviews for:
Actual Innocence: When Justice Goes Wrong and How to Make it Right
Jim Dwyer, Peter Neufeld, Barry Scheck
4.09 AVERAGE
A great look into the founding of and reasons behind the Innocence Project, spurred by the case of Marion Coakley who, wrongfully imprisoned, was freed with the help of former public defenders Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld.
Through the chapters of this book, the authors help to explain not only the horror of wrongful convictions but just how these atrocities come to pass in our supposedly 'fair' justice system.
Cases are presented and describe to explain and highlight phenomenon from junk science to sloppy defense. Each narrative is as chilling as the next and nowhere in the text does the reader find comfort. Even when the wrongfully accused are released, the crime is far from over, as is well documented in one of the final chapters 'Starting Over.'
This is a shocking tale of a slice of life that many Americans will likely never have to see, yet to deny its existence would be a crime in and of itself.
Through the chapters of this book, the authors help to explain not only the horror of wrongful convictions but just how these atrocities come to pass in our supposedly 'fair' justice system.
Cases are presented and describe to explain and highlight phenomenon from junk science to sloppy defense. Each narrative is as chilling as the next and nowhere in the text does the reader find comfort. Even when the wrongfully accused are released, the crime is far from over, as is well documented in one of the final chapters 'Starting Over.'
This is a shocking tale of a slice of life that many Americans will likely never have to see, yet to deny its existence would be a crime in and of itself.
As someone who has a passion for true crime and finds the criminal justice system incredibly interesting, I was so excited to read this book. It was compelling, well-written, and served to highlight just how complex our criminal justice system is. I was shocked by some of the injustices talked about in this book and was equally sickened by the way we handled it afterwards. If you're interested in learning more about DNA exonerations and the the science behind how innocent people get thrown in jail, this a non-fiction piece you won't want to pass up.
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
I've known about Scheck and Neufeld's Innocence Project for many years, and have taught about the unreliability of eyewitness identifications in my Constitution class, but I'd never gotten around to reading the full story until now, prompted by a reference to it in Being Wrong. Although the state of both DNA evidence and recognition of eyewitness fallability - including particularly cross-racial identifications - is much advanced in the ensuing decade, the book is a powerful condemnation of the flaws in the criminal justice system: bad lawyering, bad science, bad prosecution tactics, false confessions, jailhouse snitches - an ugly picture, and a reason that so many convicted individuals have been declared innocent after serving years in prison, including hundreds on death row. For all our lip service to "9 guilty should go free rather than 1 innocent be convicted," the system has far too many reparable flaws for it to work that way. The authors present many ideas for improvements in the system, only some of which have received serious attention yet, and mostly state by state. Much more needs to be done.
Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld, once lawyers with the Bronx Legal Aid Society, co-founded The Innocence Project, which seeks post-conviction release through DNA testing. They are among the most prominent civil rights attorneys in the U.S. Jim Dwyer is the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for the New York Daily News and author of several other books.
I have to reveal that I know Jim Dwyer, he is the brother-in-law of one of my good friends, I've read many of his other books and I have really liked them all, so I may be a bit biased in my review of his books.
If you are a fan of the podcast Serial or the TV show Law and Order or if you wonder about fairness of the criminal justice system in the US, this is a must read. While the information contained in this book may not help free Adnan Syed, it shows how many people are convicted with faulty evidence and unreliable eyewitness testimony.
Each chapter takes on a different broken part of the justice system, from eye witnesses, to jailhouse, snitches, faulty lab evidence, police misconduct, confessions, lazy attorneys etc... Its terrifying to think of how many people are wrongfully convicted of crimes and how long it takes to get them cleared in this country. And the even scarier part is that there aren't systems in place to punish those who withhold evidence, force confessions, or give false testimony...most of those people aren't charged, convicted or punished in any way. There are very few safeguards.
Once convicted of a crime its almost impossible to get back out. Some systems refuse to allow DNA testing after a conviction leaving innocent people in prison and even more startling are the times when DNA proves the person is innocent and the state won't allow them to be freed saying they must have been guilty in some way. The facts according to the authors are that there are thousands more that could be freed with DNA testing. Although science is not the stop gap for flaws in any criminal justice system, the authors very convincingly argue that it would be a beneficial start.
The stories in this book are accessible and easy to follow but not preachy. If you have any interest in the law or justice this is a must read.
I have to reveal that I know Jim Dwyer, he is the brother-in-law of one of my good friends, I've read many of his other books and I have really liked them all, so I may be a bit biased in my review of his books.
If you are a fan of the podcast Serial or the TV show Law and Order or if you wonder about fairness of the criminal justice system in the US, this is a must read. While the information contained in this book may not help free Adnan Syed, it shows how many people are convicted with faulty evidence and unreliable eyewitness testimony.
Each chapter takes on a different broken part of the justice system, from eye witnesses, to jailhouse, snitches, faulty lab evidence, police misconduct, confessions, lazy attorneys etc... Its terrifying to think of how many people are wrongfully convicted of crimes and how long it takes to get them cleared in this country. And the even scarier part is that there aren't systems in place to punish those who withhold evidence, force confessions, or give false testimony...most of those people aren't charged, convicted or punished in any way. There are very few safeguards.
Once convicted of a crime its almost impossible to get back out. Some systems refuse to allow DNA testing after a conviction leaving innocent people in prison and even more startling are the times when DNA proves the person is innocent and the state won't allow them to be freed saying they must have been guilty in some way. The facts according to the authors are that there are thousands more that could be freed with DNA testing. Although science is not the stop gap for flaws in any criminal justice system, the authors very convincingly argue that it would be a beneficial start.
The stories in this book are accessible and easy to follow but not preachy. If you have any interest in the law or justice this is a must read.
First things first, if inspiration for righteous indignation is not what you're looking for in reading material, look elsewhere. Second, the book is fifteen years old, so the landscape on this issue has changed a bit since this was written (for one thing, 49 states now have DNA access laws, which was not the case in 1999).
That said, this book does a really fantastic job of telling the story of what it was like as DNA testing became a possibility for proving innocence in courts of law. The authors lay out the main places where our criminal justice system was (still is, I imagine) failing to locate and convict guilty parties of crime. The authors discuss the (un)reliability of eyewitness identification and prison snitches, police and prosecutorial misconduct of heinous degree and frequency, issues with ineffective counsel, and the overall attitude of society and legislators of actively burying our heads in the sand and not noticing or doing anything about these problems. They do this through case studies of wrongfully convicted folks who served various sentences, some of them more than a decade, some on death row, before being proven innocent through DNA testing that, in most cases, was unavailable during their initial trials.
The most striking part for me was that as DNA testing of evidence became more prevalent and began proving the innocence of convict after convict, no one seemed to want to talk about how that might suggest broader problems with our systems of investigating and prosecuting crime. Not all crimes involve DNA to be tested. If DNA evidence is showing we were wrong in all these cases where it existed, is it really plausible that we weren't wrong in some of the cases without DNA evidence to test? Where and how did we go wrong? How can we change police/prosecutor/jury procedure so we don't get it wrong as often?
The authors, 2 of whom started the Innocence Project in 1992, have suggestions in each chapter for how reforms can be made to the particular problem that chapter addresses. The reforms are also collected in a reference section at the back of the book. I love when non-fiction authors go beyond identifying and exploring a problem to making suggestions for how to fix it. It seems like that step gets left out too often.
The downside about the reference section is that the info is pretty out-of-date, but the good news is that some of the suggested reforms have been enacted in some states since then. There are also many state-specific innocence projects now, all with websites, and while it appears the need is still overwhelming the resources, there does seem to be more national attention on this issue now than there was fifteen years ago, and some positive legislative change since this book was written.
That said, this book does a really fantastic job of telling the story of what it was like as DNA testing became a possibility for proving innocence in courts of law. The authors lay out the main places where our criminal justice system was (still is, I imagine) failing to locate and convict guilty parties of crime. The authors discuss the (un)reliability of eyewitness identification and prison snitches, police and prosecutorial misconduct of heinous degree and frequency, issues with ineffective counsel, and the overall attitude of society and legislators of actively burying our heads in the sand and not noticing or doing anything about these problems. They do this through case studies of wrongfully convicted folks who served various sentences, some of them more than a decade, some on death row, before being proven innocent through DNA testing that, in most cases, was unavailable during their initial trials.
The most striking part for me was that as DNA testing of evidence became more prevalent and began proving the innocence of convict after convict, no one seemed to want to talk about how that might suggest broader problems with our systems of investigating and prosecuting crime. Not all crimes involve DNA to be tested. If DNA evidence is showing we were wrong in all these cases where it existed, is it really plausible that we weren't wrong in some of the cases without DNA evidence to test? Where and how did we go wrong? How can we change police/prosecutor/jury procedure so we don't get it wrong as often?
The authors, 2 of whom started the Innocence Project in 1992, have suggestions in each chapter for how reforms can be made to the particular problem that chapter addresses. The reforms are also collected in a reference section at the back of the book. I love when non-fiction authors go beyond identifying and exploring a problem to making suggestions for how to fix it. It seems like that step gets left out too often.
The downside about the reference section is that the info is pretty out-of-date, but the good news is that some of the suggested reforms have been enacted in some states since then. There are also many state-specific innocence projects now, all with websites, and while it appears the need is still overwhelming the resources, there does seem to be more national attention on this issue now than there was fifteen years ago, and some positive legislative change since this book was written.
Very intriguing and heartbreaking. This goes to show you that no system is ever going to be completely just. It's also good to remind yourself that you shouldn't judge people just based on what others are saying about them.
challenging
informative
medium-paced