Download or read book Flawed Convictions written by Deborah Tuerkheimer and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2015 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book surveys the scientific, cultural, and legal history of Shaken Baby Syndrome from inception to formal dissolution. It exposes extraordinary failings in the criminal justice system's treatment of what is, in essence, a medical diagnosis of murder.--Publisher's description.
Download or read book Overturning Wrongful Convictions written by Elizabeth A. Murray, PhD and published by Twenty-First Century Books. This book was released on 2015-01-01 with total page 124 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Imagine being convicted of a crime you didn't commit and spending years behind bars. Since 1989 more than 1,400 Americans who experienced this injustice have been exonerated. Some of the people who have won their freedom include Ronald Cotton, who was falsely convicted of raping a college student; Nicole Harris, who was unjustly imprisoned for the death of her son; and intellectually disabled Earl Washington Jr., who was unfairly sentenced to death for the rape and murder of a young mother. Wrongful convictions shatter lives and harm society by allowing real perpetrators to potentially commit additional crimes. How can such injustices happen? Overturning Wrongful Convictions recounts stories of individuals who served someone else's prison time due to mistaken eyewitness identification, police misconduct, faulty forensic science, poor legal representation, courtroom mistakes, and other factors. You'll learn about the legal processes that can lead to unjust convictions and about the Innocence Project and other organizations dedicated to righting these wrongs. The sciences—including psychology, criminology, police science, and forensic science—work hand in hand with the legal system to prosecute and punish those people whose actions break laws. Those same sciences can also be used to free people who have been wrongfully convicted. As a society, can we learn from past mistakes to avoid more unjust convictions?
Download or read book Convicting the Innocent written by Brandon L. Garrett and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2011-08-04 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On January 20, 1984, Earl Washington—defended for all of forty minutes by a lawyer who had never tried a death penalty case—was found guilty of rape and murder in the state of Virginia and sentenced to death. After nine years on death row, DNA testing cast doubt on his conviction and saved his life. However, he spent another eight years in prison before more sophisticated DNA technology proved his innocence and convicted the guilty man. DNA exonerations have shattered confidence in the criminal justice system by exposing how often we have convicted the innocent and let the guilty walk free. In this unsettling in-depth analysis, Brandon Garrett examines what went wrong in the cases of the first 250 wrongfully convicted people to be exonerated by DNA testing. Based on trial transcripts, Garrett’s investigation into the causes of wrongful convictions reveals larger patterns of incompetence, abuse, and error. Evidence corrupted by suggestive eyewitness procedures, coercive interrogations, unsound and unreliable forensics, shoddy investigative practices, cognitive bias, and poor lawyering illustrates the weaknesses built into our current criminal justice system. Garrett proposes practical reforms that rely more on documented, recorded, and audited evidence, and less on fallible human memory. Very few crimes committed in the United States involve biological evidence that can be tested using DNA. How many unjust convictions are there that we will never discover? Convicting the Innocent makes a powerful case for systemic reforms to improve the accuracy of all criminal cases.
Download or read book Good Kids Bad City written by Kyle Swenson and published by Picador. This book was released on 2019-02-12 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From award-winning investigative journalist Kyle Swenson, Good Kids, Bad City is the true story of the longest wrongful imprisonment in the United States to end in exoneration, and a critical social and political history of Cleveland, the city that convicted them. In the early 1970s, three African-American men—Wiley Bridgeman, Kwame Ajamu, and Rickey Jackson—were accused and convicted of the brutal robbery and murder of a man outside of a convenience store in Cleveland, Ohio. The prosecution’s case, which resulted in a combined 106 years in prison for the three men, rested on the more-than-questionable testimony of a pre-teen, Ed Vernon. The actual murderer was never found. Almost four decades later, Vernon recanted his testimony, and Wiley, Kwame, and Rickey were released. But while their exoneration may have ended one of American history’s most disgraceful miscarriages of justice, the corruption and decay of the city responsible for their imprisonment remain on trial. Interweaving the dramatic details of the case with Cleveland’s history—one that, to this day, is fraught with systemic discrimination and racial tension—Swenson reveals how this outrage occurred and why. Good Kids, Bad City is a work of astonishing empathy and insight: an immersive exploration of race in America, the struggling Midwest, and how lost lives can be recovered.
Download or read book The Psychology and Sociology of Wrongful Convictions written by Wendy J Koen and published by Academic Press. This book was released on 2018-06-26 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Wrongful convictions are the result of faulty or false scientific evidence in 50% of the cases. Defense counsel is often at a great disadvantage in defending against evidence based on science. Illusory Evidence: The Psychology and Sociology of Wrongful Convictions is written for the non-scientist, to make complicated scientific information clear and concise enough for attorneys and judges to master. This is obtained by providing case studies to simplify issues in forensic psychology for the legal professional. Increases the courts’ knowledge about areas of psychology that have been debunked, have advanced, or have been refined by the scientific community Covers issues in psychological forensics, namely: Profiling, Psychological Defenses, Mitigation, Eyewitness Testimony/Identification, Child Testimony, Repressed Memories, False Confessions and Moral Panic Trains prosecuting attorneys about the present state of the forensic psychology, to avoid relying only on legal precedent and will not present flawed science to the court Provides defense attorneys the knowledge necessary to competently defend where forensic psychology plays a part in a prosecution Arms innocence projects and appellate attorneys with the latest information to challenge convictions Uses case studies to simplify issues in forensic psychology for the legal professional
Download or read book Wrongful Convictions and the DNA Revolution written by Daniel S. Medwed and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-03-30 with total page 441 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For centuries, most people believed the criminal justice system worked - that only guilty defendants were convicted. DNA technology shattered that belief. DNA has now freed more than three hundred innocent prisoners in the United States. This book examines the lessons learned from twenty-five years of DNA exonerations and identifies lingering challenges. By studying the dataset of DNA exonerations, we know that precise factors lead to wrongful convictions. These include eyewitness misidentifications, false confessions, dishonest informants, poor defense lawyering, weak forensic evidence, and prosecutorial misconduct. In Part I, scholars discuss the efforts of the Innocence Movement over the past quarter century to expose the phenomenon of wrongful convictions and to implement lasting reforms. In Part II, another set of researchers looks ahead and evaluates what still needs to be done to realize the ideal of a more accurate system.
Download or read book Wrongful Conviction written by James R. Acker and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume addresses issues of law, science, and policy related to wrongful convictions in the American system of justice. Coverage includes the incidence, correlates, causes, and consequences of wrongful convictions, as well as recommended reforms. The materials are organized in the form of a casebook, comprising edited judicial decisions and complementary materials from law, psychology, criminal justice, and related disciplines. "Wrongful convictions are tragedies on multiple levels. By understanding how they occur, however, we can learn how to prevent them -- and better identify those that exist. This text is a valuable resource for anyone interested in advancing justice and safety through our systems of criminal justice."-- Stephen Saloom, Policy Director, Innocence Project "The ice has finally been broken. Acker and Redlich's Wrongful Conviction is the first casebook dedicated solely to the subject of wrongful convictions. It has set a high standard of excellence that will be a tough act to follow. Not only will this well-organized and easy-to-read casebook appeal to law professors who teach seminars in such subjects as wrongful convictions, criminal procedure, and psychology and the law, but it should also appeal to undergraduate professors who teach students interested in careers in law and criminal justice."-- Steven A. Drizin, Clinical Professor of Law and Legal Director of the Center on Wrongful Convictions, Northwestern University School of Law "This book sets out an important and accessible track of study. Starting with the question of what is a wrongful conviction, the authors also explain the basic features of the criminal process and evidence law, and introduce contributions from the social sciences to help our understanding of sources of error. That journey will engage all interested in understanding what can cause wrongful convictions and what can improve the quality of criminal justice."-- Brandon L. Garrett, Professor of Law, University of Virginia School of Law "Acker and Redlich provide a current and comprehensive analysis of the legal procedures and standards that produce and resolve wrongful criminal convictions. Their presentation is part handbook for lawyers, part history lesson for scholars, and part quest for policy reforms. Their coverage is engaging and broad: from false confessions and faulty eyewitness identification, to flawed forensic evidence and, ultimately, compensation for those who are exonerated. I urge all defense attorneys to read and use this book; and I beg all prosecutors to do the same. Professors around the country: assign this book to all of your students!" -- Kimberly J. Cook, Professor of Sociology and Criminology, University of North Carolina Wilmington "Acker and Redlich have succeeded admirably in achieving their goals of selecting watershed and little-known, but important cases that define and illustrate the focal issues in each area of wrongful conviction and in discussing the results of relevant social science research and their policy implications. The notes and questions following each section are excellent. The notes provide supplemental material in a condensed fashion and the questions prompt thoughtful dialogue and encourage further study. ... an outstanding scholarly contribution to the field of wrongful conviction." -- Criminal Law Bulletin "An excellent book ... It should also be on the shelf of every scholar interested in wrongful convictions, as it provides a wealth of important materials." -- Criminal Justice Review
Download or read book Convictions written by John Kroger and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2008 with total page 490 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Publisher Description
Download or read book Fatal Convictions written by Randy Singer and published by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.. This book was released on 2010-08-01 with total page 397 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Alexander Madison is part lawyer, part pastor, and part con artist. When a Muslim imam is accused of instigating honor killings, Alex must decide whether to take the case that every other lawyer in town is running away from. He doesn’t realize until it’s too late that defending the imam may cost him the one thing in life he cares about most. Fatal Convictions is the story of a lawyer willing to risk it all and the women who must choose between faith and love.
Download or read book In Spite of Innocence written by Michael L. Radelet and published by UPNE. This book was released on 1992 with total page 422 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The stories of some 400 innocent Americans who were falsely convicted of capital crimes.
Download or read book When Truth Is All You Have written by Jim McCloskey and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2021-06-29 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A riveting and infuriating examination of criminal prosecutions, revealing how easy it is to convict the wrong person and how nearly impossible it is to undo the error.” —Washington Post "No one has illuminated this problem more thoughtfully and persistently." —Bryan Stevenson, author of Just Mercy Jim McCloskey was at a midlife crossroads when he met the man who would change his life. A former management consultant, McCloskey had grown disenchanted with the business world; he enrolled at Princeton Theological Seminary at the age of 37. His first assignment, in 1980, was as a chaplain at Trenton State Prison. Among the inmates was Jorge de los Santos, a heroin addict who'd been convicted of murder years earlier. He swore to McCloskey that he was innocent—and, over time, McCloskey came to believe him. With no legal or investigative training to speak of, McCloskey threw himself into the case. Two years later, thanks to those efforts, Jorge de los Santos walked free, fully exonerated. McCloskey had found his calling. He established Centurion Ministries, the first group in America devoted to overturning wrongful convictions. Together with his staff and a team of forensic experts, lawyers, and volunteers—through tireless investigation and an unflagging dedication to justice—Centurion has freed 65 innocent prisoners who had been sentenced to life or death. When Truth Is All You Have is McCloskey's inspirational story, as well as those of the unjustly imprisoned for whom he has fought. Spanning the nation, it is a chronicle of faith and doubt; of triumphant success and shattering failure. It candidly exposes a life of searching and struggle, uplifted by McCloskey's certainty that he had found what he was put on earth to do. Filled with generosity, humor, and compassion, it is the soul-bearing account of a man who has redeemed innumerable lives—and incited a movement—with nothing more than his unshakeable belief in the truth.
Download or read book Smoke But No Fire written by Jessica S. Henry and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2021-10-05 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 2020 Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Awards Winner, Silver (Political and Social Sciences) Winner of the Montaigne Medal, awarded to "the most thought-provoking books" The first book to explore a shocking yet all-too-common type of wrongful conviction—one that locks away innocent people for crimes that never actually happened. Rodricus Crawford was convicted and sentenced to die for the murder by suffocation of his beautiful baby boy. After years on death row, evidence confirmed what Crawford had claimed all along: he was innocent, and his son had died from an undiagnosed illness. Crawford is not alone. A full one-third of all known exonerations stem from no-crime wrongful convictions. The first book to explore this common but previously undocumented type of wrongful conviction, Smoke but No Fire tells the heartbreaking stories of innocent people convicted of crimes that simply never happened. A suicide is mislabeled a homicide. An accidental fire is mislabeled an arson. Corrupt police plant drugs on an innocent suspect. A false allegation of assault is invented to resolve a custody dispute. With this book, former New York City public defender Jessica S. Henry sheds essential light on a deeply flawed criminal justice system that allows—even encourages—these convictions to regularly occur. Smoke but No Fire promises to be eye-opening reading for legal professionals, students, activists, and the general public alike as it grapples with the chilling reality that far too many innocent people spend real years behind bars for fictional crimes.
Download or read book Junk Science and the American Criminal Justice System written by M. Chris Fabricant and published by Akashic Books. This book was released on 2023-08-22 with total page 349 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now in an expanded paperback edition, Innocence Project attorney M. Chris Fabricant presents an insider’s journey into the heart of a broken, racist system of justice and the role junk science plays in maintaining the status quo. "Fierce and absorbing . . . Fabricant chronicles the battles he and his colleagues have fought to unravel a century of fraudulent experts and the bad court decisions that allowed them to thrive." —Washington Post From CSI to Forensic Files to the celebrated reputation of the FBI crime lab, forensic scientists have long been mythologized in American popular culture as infallible crime solvers. Juries put their faith in "expert witnesses" and innocent people have been executed as a result. Innocent people are still on death row today, condemned by junk science. In 2012, the Innocence Project began searching for prisoners convicted by junk science, and three men, each convicted of capital murder, became M. Chris Fabricant's clients. Junk Science and the American Criminal Justice System chronicles the fights to overturn their wrongful convictions and to end the use of the "science" that destroyed their lives. Weaving together courtroom battles from Mississippi to Texas to New York City and beyond, Fabricant takes the reader on a journey into the heart of a broken, racist system of justice and the role forensic science plays in maintaining the status quo. At turns gripping, enraging, illuminating, and moving, Junk Science is a meticulously researched insider's perspective of the American criminal justice system. Previously untold stories of wrongful executions, corrupt prosecutors, and quackery masquerading as science animate Fabricant’s true crime narrative. The paperback edition features a brand-new index as well as an updated introduction and final chapter chronicling the Innocence Project’s continued fight against junk science in courtrooms across America.
Download or read book Autopsy of a Crime Lab written by Brandon Garrett and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2022-03 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book exposes the dangerously imperfect forensic evidence that we rely on for criminal convictions. "That's not my fingerprint, your honor," said the defendant, after FBI experts reported a "100-percent identification." The FBI was wrong. It is shocking how often they are. Autopsy of a Crime Lab is the first book to catalog the sources of error and the faulty science behind a range of well-known forensic evidence, from fingerprints and firearms to forensic algorithms. In this devastating forensic takedown, noted legal expert Brandon L. Garrett poses the questions that should be asked in courtrooms every day: Where are the studies that validate the basic premises of widely accepted techniques such as fingerprinting? How can experts testify with 100-percent certainty about a fingerprint, when there is no such thing as a 100 percent match? Where is the quality control at the crime scenes and in the laboratories? Should we so readily adopt powerful new technologies like facial recognition software and rapid DNA machines? And why have judges been so reluctant to consider the weaknesses of so many long-accepted methods? Taking us into the lives of the wrongfully convicted or nearly convicted, into crime labs rocked by scandal, and onto the front lines of promising reform efforts driven by professionals and researchers alike, Autopsy of a Crime Lab illustrates the persistence and perniciousness of shaky science and its well-meaning practitioners.
Download or read book Ghost of the Innocent Man written by Benjamin Rachlin and published by Back Bay Books. This book was released on 2018-08-21 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the Best Books of 2017: National Public Radio, San Francisco Chronicle, Library Journal, Shelf Awareness "Remarkable . . . Captivating . . . Rachlin is a skilled storyteller." --New York Times Book Review "A gripping legal-thriller mystery . . . Profoundly elevates good-cause advocacy to greater heights--to where innocent lives are saved." --USA Today "A crisply written page turner." --NPR A gripping account of one man's long road to freedom that will forever change how we understand our criminal justice system During the last three decades, more than two thousand American citizens have been wrongfully convicted. Ghost of the Innocent Man brings us one of the most dramatic of those cases and provides the clearest picture yet of the national scourge of wrongful conviction and of the opportunity for meaningful reform. When the final gavel clapped in a rural southern courtroom in the summer of 1988, Willie J. Grimes, a gentle spirit with no record of violence, was shocked and devastated to be convicted of first-degree rape and sentenced to life imprisonment. Here is the story of this everyman and his extraordinary quarter-century-long journey to freedom, told in breathtaking and sympathetic detail, from the botched evidence and suspect testimony that led to his incarceration to the tireless efforts to prove his innocence and the identity of the true perpetrator. These were spearheaded by his relentless champion, Christine Mumma, a cofounder of North Carolina's Innocence Inquiry Commission. That commission--unprecedented at its inception in 2006--remains a model organization unlike any other in the country, and one now responsible for a growing number of exonerations. With meticulous, prismatic research and pulse-quickening prose, Benjamin Rachlin presents one man's tragedy and triumph. The jarring and unsettling truth is that the story of Willie J. Grimes, for all its outrage, dignity, and grace, is not a unique travesty. But through the harrowing and suspenseful account of one life, told from the inside, we experience the full horror of wrongful conviction on a national scale. Ghost of the Innocent Man is both rare and essential, a masterwork of empathy. The book offers a profound reckoning not only with the shortcomings of our criminal justice system but also with its possibilities for redemption.
Download or read book Shattered Justice written by Kimberly J. Cook and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 2022-08-12 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shattered Justice presents original crime victims' experiences with violent crime, investigations and trials, and later exonerations in their cases. Cook reveals how homicide victims' family members and rape survivors describe the painful impact of the primary trauma, the secondary trauma of the investigations and trials, and then the tertiary trauma associated with wrongful convictions and exonerations.
Download or read book Picking Cotton written by Jennifer Thompson-Cannino and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2010-01-05 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The New York Times best selling true story of an unlikely friendship forged between a woman and the man she incorrectly identified as her rapist and sent to prison for 11 years. Jennifer Thompson was raped at knifepoint by a man who broke into her apartment while she slept. She was able to escape, and eventually positively identified Ronald Cotton as her attacker. Ronald insisted that she was mistaken-- but Jennifer's positive identification was the compelling evidence that put him behind bars. After eleven years, Ronald was allowed to take a DNA test that proved his innocence. He was released, after serving more than a decade in prison for a crime he never committed. Two years later, Jennifer and Ronald met face to face-- and forged an unlikely friendship that changed both of their lives. With Picking Cotton, Jennifer and Ronald tell in their own words the harrowing details of their tragedy, and challenge our ideas of memory and judgment while demonstrating the profound nature of human grace and the healing power of forgiveness.
