Convicting the Innocent: Where Criminal Prosecutions Go Wrong [Hardcover]

Brandon L. Garrett (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 4, 2011

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.

(20110529)

Editorial Reviews

Review

For six years now I have worked diligently within the innocence movement, and I often hear the question: 'How do wrongful convictions happen?' Convicting the Innocent gives all the answers. It is a fascinating study of what goes wrong, and it clearly shows that virtually all wrongful convictions could have been avoided.
--John Grisham (20110815)

DNA testing is revolutionizing our system of criminal justice: this book shows why. By digging deep into the case files of exonerees, Brandon Garrett uncovers what went wrong in those cases and probably in many more we simply can't know about. Garrett makes a powerful case for how to improve criminal justice so that we dramatically reduce the number of wrongly convicted.
--Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld, The Innocence Project (20111201)

This is an invaluable book, a comprehensive, highly readable but well-researched work examining the hows and whys of the law's ultimate nightmare--convicting the innocent.
--Scott Turow, author of Innocent (20120223)

How can we stop sending innocent people to our prisons? As you turn the pages of this important and startling book, you will come to realize that wrongful convictions are not accidents. They are the tragic result of a criminal justice system in deep need of reform.
--Sister Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking

It's common to say that DNA exonerations of innocent defendants provide a unique window on the weaknesses in our system of criminal investigation and trial. But what exactly do we see when we look through that window? Until now the answer has been pretty sketchy. Brandon Garrett has produced a far more detailed and complete picture of the lessons of DNA exonerations than anything else to date. This is an indispensable book for anyone wanting to understand or improve American criminal justice.
--Samuel R. Gross, Thomas and Mabel Long Professor of Law, University of Michigan

Garrett's book is a gripping contribution to the literature of injustice, along with a galvanizing call for reform...It's the stories in his book that stick in the memory. One can only hope that they will mobilize a broad range of citizens, liberal and conservative, to demand legislative and judicial reforms ensuring that the innocent go free whether or not the constable has blundered.
--Jeffrey Rosen (New York Times Book Review )

Looking at the 250 people exonerated through DNA as of February 2010, Garrett aimed to determine how often...malignant factors had warped the criminal justice process at the expense of an innocent person (and to the benefit of an actual criminal who went unpursued). Garrett tracked down court transcripts and dug into case files. He then sliced, diced, sifted and collated the data. Some law professors would take a pass on this kind of grunt work. Garrett did not, and our justice system can be the better for it.
--Kevin Doyle (America )

While false convictions are a recognized phenomenon, Garrett focuses much needed attention on potential solutions, offering concrete suggestions for reform. (Publishers Weekly )

This book details some of the worst miscarriages of justice in U.S. history and describes how DNA evidence helped to right those wrongs...The book, what must be the most thorough treatment yet of wrongful convictions, is a first-rate examination of the human foibles and conflicts of interest hampering the pursuit of justice.
--A. C. Mobley (Choice )

A uniquely valuable part of Garrett's book is a statistical appendix that provides a quantitative overview of the false convictions, their consequences, and the factors that contributed to them....It is hard to imagine seven pages more damaging to the claims of our system of criminal justice.
--Richard C. Lewontin (New York Review of Books )

About the Author

Brandon L. Garrett is Professor of Law at the University of Virginia School of Law.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 376 pages
• Publisher: Harvard University Press (April 4, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0674058704
• ISBN-13: 978-0674058705
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #152,384 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #4 in Books > Law > Procedures & Litigation > Court Records
  • #5 in Books > Law > Procedures & Litigation > Witnesses

More About the Author

Brandon L. Garrett is a Professor of Law at the University of Virginia School of Law. Garrett recently published a book, "Convicting the Innocent: Where Criminal Prosecutions Go Wrong," examining what went wrong in the cases of the first 250 people to be exonerated by DNA testing, published by Harvard University Press.

Garrett attended Columbia Law School, where he was an articles editor of the Columbia Law Review and a Kent Scholar. After graduating, he clerked for the Hon. Pierre N. Leval of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He then worked as an associate at Neufeld, Scheck & Brustin LLP in New York City. He joined the UVA Law faculty in 2005. His research and teaching interests include criminal procedure, wrongful convictions, habeas corpus, corporate crime, civil rights, civil procedure and constitutional law.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book, August 15, 2011

By 

Bevis Schock - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Convicting the Innocent: Where Criminal Prosecutions Go Wrong (Hardcover)

Criminal Attys and Civil Rights Attys take note.

This book will be helpful in your practice in three ways. First, it will make you incensed at the reckless conduct of govt officials, and so will inspire you to continue to give it your best shot every day. Second, it will give you grist for the cross-examination mill as you prepare your cases for trial, because you will have conveniently at hand examples of how investigators and prosecutors have improperly fulfilled their duties in various common situations. Third, it will let you know that there have been substantial financial awards against the govt for improper conduct in wrongful conviction cases, and so it will let you know there are financial rewards for those willing to serve as "private atty general" in the right matters.

The book is well-written, succinct, and not hortatory.

I am delivering a copy of the book to some of my local friends in the criminal bar and I expect they will be intrigued.

Finally, it is possible, but not likely, that as this book gains traction, at some times, in a few places, in a portion of cases, some govt officials will feel guilty about their misconduct, perhaps particularly because of the harsh glare of publicity, and so they will clean up their act. Don't count on it.

Bevis Schock, Atty, St. Louis

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "An innocent can become a convict in the US criminal justice system, August 20, 2011

By 

Hubert Shea (Shanghai, China) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Convicting the Innocent: Where Criminal Prosecutions Go Wrong (Hardcover)

In this book, Professor Garrett has studied trial transcripts of 250 wrongfully convicted people to unfold "what has gone wrong" with the current criminal justice system in the US.

According to him, there are serious systemic failures in criminal prosecutions that cause wrongful conviction. It is also difficult for convicts to claim their innocence under the lengthy appeals and habeas proceedings:-

1. Innocent people can be involuntarily succumbed to undue police pressure and deceptive interrogation techniques (Reid technique, "Mutt and Jeff", "False Evidence" "Good Cop, Bad Cop" techniques) (P.22) to make "coerced-complaint" confessions to crime they did not commit during interrogations (P.18). Besides, police can feed details of crimes to innocent people in which confession statements are constructed as if innocent people volunteered a litany of details about the crimes like true culprits could have known. Although the US Constitution regulates confession statements via two key principles: the "Miranda" warnings (protections to shield suspects from coercion) and the requirement of voluntariness (P.36), judges always believes that confessions that corroborated by detailed facts are apparently reliable and voluntary.

2. Even though innocent people are reluctant to make confessions to crime they did not commit during interrogations, they can become convicts due to other corrupted evidence, including eyewitness misidentifications, flawed forensics, and trial by liar. The police can misdirect witnesses to pick out of innocent people during "suggestive" or "prompting" identification procedures (live lineup, mug shots, witness book, composite image (P.52). Eyewitness memory can be fallible and those multiple procedures have reinforced false identifications. Judges rarely suppress eyewitness identifications and the five-factor "Mason test" and other eyewitness reliability tests are deeply flawed (false confidence, discrepancies in descriptions, opportunity to view, degree of attention, the passage of time, cross-racial identifications, child witnesses).

The practice of forensic science (serology, microscopic hair comparison, bite mark comparison, shoe print comparison, voice comparison) (P.94, P.95, P.102, P.105) is pervasively flawed and unreliable to solve any crime, according to Professor Garret. The presentation of forensic evidence can be entirely one-sided because forensic analysts testify for the prosecutors (DNA testing, Fingerprint comparison) (P.100, P.107). There are also malpractices in crime laboratories which lead to testing procedures in an invalid way. Moreover, prosecutors usually use jailhouse informants (P.123), (P.139), and codefendants (P.141) in order to plug all of the holes in criminal cases (jack-of-all-trades). Those informants can lie in the face of "stick-and-carrot" techniques used by prosecutors (P.130).

3. During trial, Innocent people from lower class always fail to afford talented attorneys and expert witnesses to assert their innocence. (P.149, P.163, P.165). They cannot present a strong defense and make access to substantial investigative resources in contrast to prosecutors. There are cases that prosecutors and polices have concealed evidence that can help the defense case.

Between Chapter 7 and 8, Professor Garret has criticized appeals and habeas proceedings to be lengthy and unfair. A wrongfully convicted person served 14 years in prison between his trial and his exoneration (P.180). Some of the innocents have spent a long time (3 years for Frank Lee Smith who finally died of cancer before DNA testing completion) to apply for a DNA testing protest their innocence (P.214). Moreover, the appellate and post-conviction procedures do not effectively look at factual instead of legal errors and judges are unwilling to second-guess the verdict of the jury.

According to Professor Garret, the current criminal justice system is becoming a "titled played field" (P.176) to wrongfully convicted people. The psychological and physical impact of a false conviction is huge. Innocents are in jail before exoneration and true culprits can continue to be free to commit to other crimes.

Nonetheless, the evolving DNA technology has exonerated the innocents and set them free, Professor Garret has maintained that the current criminal justice system should be practically reformed, ranging from criminal procedures (P.244), interrogation (P.247), eyewitness identification (P.249), forensic science (P.252), Jailhouse informant (P.256), death penalty (P.257), prosecution (P.259), defense (P.260), federal reforms (P.261). The appendix chapter contains different findings of this study with charts and graphics. Readers can also gain access to http://law.virginia.edu/innocence if they are interested in procuring detailed summaries of all the cases of those innocent people under study.

Professor Garret has successfully guided readers to understand the root causes of the problem in the US criminal justice system and what could prevent wrongful convictions via different reforms in the system. Lessons learnt from this book can be very insightful and relevant to members of criminal justice system in other developed and developing countries who have aspired to prevent wrongful convictions in the future.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Altered my word view, November 20, 2011

By 

laurenpie (San Diego, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Convicting the Innocent: Where Criminal Prosecutions Go Wrong (Hardcover)

This book has shaken me and radically altered my world view. At fifty, it's rare to undergo such a paradigm shift, but this book has opened my eyes. Though I've nothing to do with our justice system (I'm an average Jane), I CANNOT recommend this book HIGHLY ENOUGH, I hope EVERYONE reads it.

I've gone through my life blissfully unaware of the inherent weaknesses of our justice system. I've trusted that our American courts are fair, that we are innocent until proven guilty, and that (virtually) all incarcerated convicts are guilty.

No longer. Brandon Garrett has laid out, step by step and case after case after case, how easily we can go wrong. I was struck especially by the fact that these horrific errors are often committed by upright and moral detectives, prosecutors and judges, who truly mean well and fully believe they're simply getting the perpetrator, and yet they are so wrong. Yet another example of, "The heart is deceitful above all else": We're (innocently) so sure we're right, and yet we MUST follow all the checks and balances regardless, because our strong "gut feelings" significantly influence us and yet could be SO WRONG and we'd not even know it... and the consequences are just too high.

I truly appreciate the author's work and hope we'll see change coming.