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nevclue's review against another edition
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.
Content warning for fairly graphic details of child rape and murder, as well as descriptions of lots of other violent crimes.
pickwickthedodo's review against another edition
5.0
This book was as infuriating as it was fascinating. I nearly rage-quit every 20 minutes. That said, I will recommend this book to everyone because it is hugely important.
pickwickthedodo's review against another edition
5.0
Just as infuriating and important as the first time I read it. This should be required reading for everyone, globally.
amandamz's review against another edition
4.0
This book was a deep dive on the coroner system and those who took advantage of it in Mississippi, along with the junk science that was (and still is) running rampant in Mississippi and the rest of the country. The fact that our judicial system is not set up properly to allow science to move forward AND to discredit now debunked methods in the courtroom is truly disgusting.
"'The system's gonna do what the system's gonna do.'"
I feel like the last line of the book so succinctly sums up this book and the criminal justice system in the US in the most terrible way.
"'The system's gonna do what the system's gonna do.'"
I feel like the last line of the book so succinctly sums up this book and the criminal justice system in the US in the most terrible way.
emmablythe's review against another edition
4.0
While this book at times felt like it was really getting into the weeds, the weeds here are very important. What a crazy, infuriating story
aubreyfrogger's review against another edition
5.0
Heads up, there are mentions of child sexual abuse that are somewhat more detailed than I was expecting and may be triggering to some people.
allibroad's review against another edition
4.0
This book reminds me of Judge Jed Rakoff's remarkable, if short-lived decision in US v. Quinones (2002). He held that capital punishment is unconstitutional because it "not only deprives innocent people of a significant opportunity to prove their innocence, and thereby violates procedural due process, but also creates an undue risk of executing innocent people, and thereby violates substantive due process." How is a victim of a miscarriage of justice supposed to prove that he was convicted on the basis of junk science if the science isn't there yet? And if he's already been executed before by the time it is?
geve_'s review against another edition
3.0
Very well researched, horrible story of crime investigation system in Mississippi. Shows a sort of insane amount of evidence about the good ol' boy system in effect in the south, in the law enforcement and criminal "justice" sphere. Obviously not gonna shock anyone to read how crazy racist and sexist it all is, and how there's no justice to be had when the whole racket is about getting paid, maintaining power and boosting DA and cop egos by convicting people quickly and efficiently.
The book itself was fine. I appreciate the research that went into it, but it droned on at some points. I like the history, but it was perhaps a bit much. There was more repetition than I needed for sure. It went into some detail about a lot of miscarriages of justice in cases around the two main "investigators" in the book, sort of glossing over how the whole system allowed these two jackasses to persist for so long. In addition, I was a bit annoyed at some of the wording around how the men who'd been falsely imprisoned for some rapes/murders were the biggest victims of the crimes. Nah man, the raped, dead children were def the biggest victims.
All in all, probably pretty good book for the true crime inclined, if a bit dry with the excess of horrible cases, back to back and lengthy history of coroners vs medical examiners.
The book itself was fine. I appreciate the research that went into it, but it droned on at some points. I like the history, but it was perhaps a bit much. There was more repetition than I needed for sure. It went into some detail about a lot of miscarriages of justice in cases around the two main "investigators" in the book, sort of glossing over how the whole system allowed these two jackasses to persist for so long. In addition, I was a bit annoyed at some of the wording around how the men who'd been falsely imprisoned for some rapes/murders were the biggest victims of the crimes. Nah man, the raped, dead children were def the biggest victims.
All in all, probably pretty good book for the true crime inclined, if a bit dry with the excess of horrible cases, back to back and lengthy history of coroners vs medical examiners.
jeffburns's review against another edition
5.0
The Cadaver King and the Country Dentist: A True Story of Injustice in the American South. Radley Balko and Tucker Carrington. Public Affairs, 2018. 416 pages.
I want to start by saying that I know some very, very fine people from Mississippi. I really don't want to offend my friends from Mississippi. They really are good people --- great people. However, I know enough about Mississippi that it is absolutely impossible to hear the word without thinking of Nina Simone's song, "Mississippi G***am." Seriously. The level of inhumanity, hatred, stupidity, and pure evil present in Mississippi rivals any other political entity in the history of the world. Sadly, not much has changed in the 21st century.
The Cadaver King and the Country Dentist is a hard book to read. It's about the broken American legal system. And there is no disputing that it is broken, on all levels from law enforcement to attorneys, to judges, and to politicians. As author John Grisham points out in his introduction to the book, innocent people are jailed and executed in America. If there are 2.3 million people in prison and just .5% of them (half of one percent) are innocent, that’s 11,500 people serving time in jail for something they didn’t do. I think we can agree that 1 person is too many, but 11,500? The American legal system is broken, but is there a better one in the world?
This book is specifically about Mississippi, beginning in 1995, and specifically about two men, Steven Hayne and Michael West, a doctor and dentist respectively, who became high-paid medical examiners for hire. The book argues that they presented evidence and testimony that resulted in convictions of many people for horrific crimes that they had nothing to do with. Some of those people were sentenced to life in prison or death row. The authors focus on two men in particular who have been freed because new evidence and investigations have vindicated them, but there are other men still on death row. At the very least, the doctors are incompetent, but it's more likely that they routinely created false evidence that was used to convict innocent people. They were aided and abetted at every turn by Mississippi law enforcement, prosecutors, judges, and politicians. To date, those involved in fraudulently convicting dozens and dozens of innocent people, including Hayne and West, have neither admitted wrongdoing or been punished.
My blood boiled as I read this book. Also, the two crimes that are the focus of the book are terrible crimes against toddlers which makes it even harder to read. However, this dysfunction needs to be exposed to sunlight --- not that anything changes, it is Mississippi. The book is also worth reading because of the first few chapters in which the authors discuss the history of the office of coroner, coroners' roles in the Jim Crow South, and the development of pathology as a medical field in the US. For those of the "CSI" generation (and for older people like me, "Quincy"), readers are in for a shock. Autopsies and forensic investigation are incredibly new developments, really only beginning in the 1950s and 1960s, and moving slowly across the country.
I want to start by saying that I know some very, very fine people from Mississippi. I really don't want to offend my friends from Mississippi. They really are good people --- great people. However, I know enough about Mississippi that it is absolutely impossible to hear the word without thinking of Nina Simone's song, "Mississippi G***am." Seriously. The level of inhumanity, hatred, stupidity, and pure evil present in Mississippi rivals any other political entity in the history of the world. Sadly, not much has changed in the 21st century.
The Cadaver King and the Country Dentist is a hard book to read. It's about the broken American legal system. And there is no disputing that it is broken, on all levels from law enforcement to attorneys, to judges, and to politicians. As author John Grisham points out in his introduction to the book, innocent people are jailed and executed in America. If there are 2.3 million people in prison and just .5% of them (half of one percent) are innocent, that’s 11,500 people serving time in jail for something they didn’t do. I think we can agree that 1 person is too many, but 11,500? The American legal system is broken, but is there a better one in the world?
This book is specifically about Mississippi, beginning in 1995, and specifically about two men, Steven Hayne and Michael West, a doctor and dentist respectively, who became high-paid medical examiners for hire. The book argues that they presented evidence and testimony that resulted in convictions of many people for horrific crimes that they had nothing to do with. Some of those people were sentenced to life in prison or death row. The authors focus on two men in particular who have been freed because new evidence and investigations have vindicated them, but there are other men still on death row. At the very least, the doctors are incompetent, but it's more likely that they routinely created false evidence that was used to convict innocent people. They were aided and abetted at every turn by Mississippi law enforcement, prosecutors, judges, and politicians. To date, those involved in fraudulently convicting dozens and dozens of innocent people, including Hayne and West, have neither admitted wrongdoing or been punished.
My blood boiled as I read this book. Also, the two crimes that are the focus of the book are terrible crimes against toddlers which makes it even harder to read. However, this dysfunction needs to be exposed to sunlight --- not that anything changes, it is Mississippi. The book is also worth reading because of the first few chapters in which the authors discuss the history of the office of coroner, coroners' roles in the Jim Crow South, and the development of pathology as a medical field in the US. For those of the "CSI" generation (and for older people like me, "Quincy"), readers are in for a shock. Autopsies and forensic investigation are incredibly new developments, really only beginning in the 1950s and 1960s, and moving slowly across the country.