Innocent: Inside Wrongful Conviction Cases [Hardcover]

Scott Christianson (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0814716342 | ISBN-13: 978-0814716342 | Publication Date: February 1, 2004

Innocent graphically documents forty-two recent criminal cases to find evidence of shocking miscarriages of justice, especially in murder cases. Based upon interviews with more than 200 people and reviews of hundreds internal case files, court records, smoking-gun memoranda, and other documents, Scott Christianson gets inside the legal cases, revealing the mistakes, abuses, and underlying factors that led to miscarriages of justice, while also describing how determined prisoners, post-conviction attorneys, advocates, and journalists struggle against tremendous odds to try to win their exonerations.

The result is a powerful work that recounts the human costs of a criminal justice system gone awry, and shows us how wrongful convictions can—and do—happen everywhere.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A chilling chronicle of what can happen when the criminal justice system goes awry, Christianson's volume documents 42 cases in which an innocent person was sentenced for a crime that she or he didn't commit. An investigative reporter who specializes in the American prisons, Christianson (With Liberty for Some; Condemned) finds the usual evils in our beleaguered, bureaucratic judicial system-prejudiced juries, mistaken identification, ineffective counsel. More frightening, however, are the cases that he reveals involve deliberate institutional corruption-false confessions, fabrication of evidence or misconduct by police or prosecutors. Despite the publicity surrounding the recent exoneration of some prisoners who were freed after the reconsideration of DNA evidence, many wrongfully convicted people still remain incarcerated. The powerful and compelling stories of such innocent victims carry this book, which is otherwise rather shoddily assembled-the anecdotes and photographs lack cohesion or orderly arrangement. Readers may be frustrated by the book's episodic structure and lack of narrative unity, but the subject is an undeniably important one.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

“A chilling chronicle of what can happen when the criminal justice system goes awry.”
-Publishers Weekly

,

“Innocent is an excellent recommendation to make the next time someone questions the need for further criminal justice reform.”
-New York Law Journal

,

“This should be required reading for everyone who gives a damn about justice in this country.”
-Mickey Sherman,CBS News legal analyst

“Christianson succeeds in raising reasonable doubts and questions about the integrity of our criminal justice system. Written with perceptiveness and sympathy for the plight of the wrongly convicted, [Innocent] is an excellent addition to the literature on miscarriages of justice.”-Justicia

,

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: NYU Press (February 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0814716342
• ISBN-13: 978-0814716342
• Product Dimensions: 10.3 x 7.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,340,272 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A must read for anyone concerned about justice!, January 28, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Innocent: Inside Wrongful Conviction Cases (Hardcover)

I've never read anything quite like this book. The author, who displays an unusual depth and breadth of knowledge about the system, has selected twelve cases of "actual innocence": people who have,through "bad" eyewitness accounts, heresay evidence and/or outright corruption been unjustly convicted and jailed for many years. The stories are HEARTBREAKING and told with great clarity. Fortunately many of these people (several of which have already been exonerated - though not compensated!!) have legal teams and other committed professionals (such as the author) who labor on their behalf pro bono. It seems that the only way our justice system can be reformed is through media exposure, and this book is an eloquent example. Today New York, tomorrow, Texas . . . .