The Innocents [Hardcover]

Peter Neufeld (Author), Barry Scheck (Author), Althea Wasow (Editor), Taryn Simon (Photographer)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 2003

Leading civil rights attorneys Peter Neufeld and Barry Scheck of The Innocence Project commissioned photographer Taryn Simon to travel across the United States photographing and interviewing individuals who were convicted of heinous crimes of which they were innocent. Simon photographed these innocents at sites of particular significance to their illegitimate conviction: the scene of the crime, misidentification, arrest, or alibi. Simon’s portraits are accompanied by a commentary by Neufeld and Scheck.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The Innocents is a book of portraits of former inmates accompanying a traveling exhibit by the same name mounted by the Innocence Project, a 10-year-old civil rights program founded by rock-star attorneys Peter Neufeld and Barry Scheck to free the wrongly convicted via DNA testing. Neufeld and Scheck provide the book's foreward and brief commentary on each case. The subjects are all ex-cons who were exonerated through DNA testing and then released after serving time. Some had been sentenced to life, some to death. Taryn Simon's photographs put prisoners in the spotlight--only this time they regain their dignity and become art in the process. Of the 80-plus portraits in the book, most were taken at the scenes of the crimes. Some pose with the victims. Ronald Cotton, for example, served more than 10 years of a life sentence for rape. He is photographed with a victim, both of them staring at the camera with fortitude and bitterness. Nearly every picture is similar, the subject staring directly into the lens, always surrounded by the same eerie, diffused light like the kind when tornadoes loom. The subjects are interviewed by Simon as well; their commentary is also distressing and poignant. Neil Miller says he had a better life in prison. Richard Danziger was freed but rendered brain damaged by a jailhouse attacker. Walter Snyder went to prison instead of the Olympics. Most of these subjects were convicted on the basis of witness misidentification. Simon's photos are also like mug shots, depicting their subjects with emotionless expressions and using lighting that flattens out the surroundings. But here they set the record straight as Simon’s art helps re-humanize them. --Eric Reyes

From Publishers Weekly

Working to free convicts who are convinced that DNA evidence would exonerate them, the Innocence Project was founded by attorneys Peter Neufeld and Barry Scheck (of O.J. Simpson and nanny Louise Woodward fame) and is based at the Cardozo School of Law in New York City. The project has had a role in more than 100 overturned convictions, some of which are chronicled in Neufeld and Scheck's Actual Innocence: Five Days to Execution and other Dispatches from the Wrongly Convicted (2000) and now in this stunning book. A Guggenheim fellow who is not yet 30, Simon photographed 39 men and one woman whose convictions have been reversed or overturned, often taking the photos at the scenes of the crimes that they did not commit. Chris Ochoa stands, hands firmly on a handrail, outside the Pizza Hut in Austin, Tex., where a woman was raped and murdered, the victim's mother by his side. Charles Irvin Fain stands in the dark on the shore of the Snake River near Melba, Idaho, where a girl was abducted and murdered, lit from behind by the headlights of his truck. Calvin Washington stands, bathed in yellow lamp light, inside cabin 24 of the C&E Motel in Waco, Tex., where an informant claimed to have heard him confess to rape and murder; Simon photographs him from outside. Most of the men wear resolute expressions; most are minorities and come from modest backgrounds. Facing the portraits, commentary on the facts of the cases by Neufeld and Scheck is complemented by comments the subjects made in interviews with Simon. As Larry Youngblood notes, "[I]t's never going to be the same. Those years are lost. You can't get them back." Simon's incisive, perfectly composed full-page portraits, reproduced in sharp, clear relief, make that hauntingly clear.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 136 pages
• Publisher: Umbrage Editions; First Edition edition (June 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1884167187
• ISBN-13: 978-1884167188
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 11.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #360,212 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Human Face on the flaws of our system, December 14, 2003

By 

M. Desoer (Bay Area, California) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Innocents (Hardcover)

"The Innocents" is a jarring photo documentation of the issues raised by the scores of false convictions which have been overturned, primarily as a result of DNA evidence. As with Barry Scheck's book, "Actual Innocence", one of the most disturbing conclusions is that there are many more falsely-convicted individuals who never will be cleared because their alleged crimes did not leave DNA evidence behind.

The pictures in this book put a human face to the exonerated. The simple, direct accompanying text and quotes from the former prisoners tell the story over and over. I highly recommend this book in conjunction with Actual Innocence which discusses the causes of false convictions and attempts to articulate solutions to this ongoing problem with our legal system (even though it is one of the best legal systems in the world).

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful photographs of those falsely accused, August 19, 2004

By 

John Kwok (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Innocents (Hardcover)

There are emerging artists whose work tends to emphasize style over substance, of which there are many (Notable examples include Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY artist Anissa Mack, perhaps best known for her performance piece "Pies for a Passerby" and most, though not all, of the emerging artists represented in the recent Brooklyn Museum exhibition "Open House: Working in Brooklyn".). And then there are those who can produce stylishly beautiful work, and make profound statements about culture, society, etc. through their art. Fellow Brunonian Taryn Simon - she studied photography primarily at the Rhode Island School of Design, widely regarded as America's premier art school, while still an undergraduate at Brown - is unquestionably one of these, with a distinctive documentary style which harkens back to Walker Evans's sympathetic black and white photographic portrayals of people in Depression-era America. However, here Simon has worked deliberately in color, using the conventions of commercial fashion photography to create memorable images. Hers is a splendid, mature body of work, replete with much empathy for her subjects; former convicts who were falsely accused and convicted. Each photograph is accompanied with commentary from the two attorneys in charge of the Innocence Project, Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld. Through their Innocence Project, attorneys Scheck and Neufeld have freed scores of people who were wrongly convicted. Simon received a Guggenheim Fellowship in Photography for this project; an award normally given to artists who are in mid-career or further along, not to an emerging artist. Simon's work has been exhibited at New York City's International Center of Photography and P. S. 1 Contemporary Art Center; an international tour of these photographs had its first stop at P. S. 1. As both a fellow alumnus of her college and a fellow photographer, I eagerly look forward to yet another impressive body of work from Ms. Simon.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars mandatory reading for anyone in the judicial system, March 4, 2004

By 

Logical Libertine (Sarasota, FL USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Innocents (Hardcover)

This book is phenomenal. Not only in its ironic ability to tell these tales, but for also revealing the clear errors that the judicial system cranks out. Anyone interested in those who are falsely convicted should check out www.wm3.org.