Reviews

Eye opening book. Really lifts the veil on the science/justice/politics interaction. Very disheartening how bad science can continue to be used and how people wrongly convicted get trapped. Next time I hear someone is “soft on crime” I’ll think of the judges and officials in this book who tried to highlight concerns.

_lilbey_'s review against another edition

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4.0

4.5- really interesting. An enraging account of many flaw of the legal system in regards to "scientific evidence" and its inability/unwillingness to correct even the most egregious mistakes.

marianka1992's review

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informative sad medium-paced

3.5

hoganbryan's review against another edition

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4.0

This book makes me want to stay the hell out of Mississippi. Well researched and left me aghast at so many points. But then again justice is not blind it is simply addicted to process.

cael_reads's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional informative reflective slow-paced

3.5

alyssa_gallant's review against another edition

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challenging dark informative inspiring tense slow-paced

4.0

nevclue's review against another edition

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4.0

Extremely detailed and perhaps a bit overlong, but I can't really fault the authors for that because this is a jaw-dropping indictment of the coroner system in Mississippi, bunk forensic science (apparently most of it), and the accompanying collusion of police, lawyers, and judges. This is not a whodunit about the two murders that Kennedy Brewer and Levon Brooks were wrongly convicted of--the real murdered is named at the very beginning and we know that he goes to jail. Instead it's about the system that allowed them to be convicted.

Content warning for fairly graphic details of child rape and murder, as well as descriptions of lots of other violent crimes.

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