Synopses & Reviews
An Atlantic Book of the Year and finalist for the Orwell Prize: a riveting true crime tale from the defense attorney who inspired John Grishams The Chamber
Legendary criminal defense attorney Clive Stafford Smith has devoted his career to helping save penniless defendants from a justice system whose goal is not so much to find the right man as to get a conviction.
Miami, 1986. Kris Maharaj is arrested, tried, and sentenced to death for the brutal murder of his exbusiness partner, Derrick Moo Young, and Derricks son, Duane. Suspecting Kris may be innocent, as he claims, Stafford Smith begins his own investigation, which takes him from Miami to Nassau in the Bahamas to Colombia in search of the real killer. Interweaving the authors inspiring personal story with a spellbinding page-turner, The Injustice System exposes our broken legal processand drops a bombshell that should reopen a long-closed case.
Review
"A troubling portrayal of the criminal justice system from within its well-guarded walls." New York Times
Review
"Required reading for anyone who believes that only the guilty are put to death....A catalog of appalling miscarriages of justice." Washington Post
Review
"[A] chilling look at judicial corruption and incompetence." New York Daily News
Review
"Should be required reading for...our justice system." Philadelphia Inquirer
Synopsis
Here are the stories of innocent men and women—and the system that put them away under the guise of justice. Now updated with new information, Actual Innocence sheds light on “a system that tolerates lying prosecutors, slumbering defense attorneys and sloppy investigators” (Salt Lake Tribune)—revealing the shocking flaws that can derail the legal process and the ways that DNA testing has often shattered so-called solid evidence that condemned American citizens to death.
Synopsis
Here are the stories of innocent men and women-and the system that put them away under the guise of justice. Now updated with new information, Actual Innocence sheds light on "a system that tolerates lying prosecutors, slumbering defense attorneys and sloppy investigators" (Salt Lake Tribune)-revealing the shocking flaws that can derail the legal process and the ways that DNA testing has often shattered so-called solid evidence that condemned American citizens to death.
Synopsis
An Atlantic Book of the Year: a riveting true crime tale from the defense attorney who inspired John Grishams The Chamber Legendary criminal defense attorney Clive Stafford Smith has devoted his career to helping save penniless defendants from a justice system whose goal is not so much to find the right man as to get a conviction.
Miami, 1986. Kris Maharaj is arrested, tried, and sentenced to death for the brutal murder of his exbusiness partner, Derrick Moo Young, and Derricks son, Duane. Suspecting Kris may be innocent, as he claims, Stafford Smith begins his own investigation, which takes him from Miami to Nassau in the Bahamas to Colombia in search of the real killer. Interweaving the authors inspiring personal story with a spellbinding page-turner, The Injustice System exposes our broken legal processand drops a bombshell that should reopen a long-closed case.
Synopsis
Here are the stories of innocent men and women—and the system that put them away under the guise of justice. Now updated with new information, Actual Innocence sheds light on “a system that tolerates lying prosecutors, slumbering defense attorneys and sloppy investigators” (Salt Lake Tribune)—revealing the shocking flaws that can derail the legal process and the ways that DNA testing has often shattered so-called solid evidence that condemned American citizens to death.
About the Author
Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld, once lawyers with the Bronx Legal Aid Society, co-founded The Innocence Project, which seeks post-conviction release through DNA testing. They are among the most prominent civil rights attorneys in the U.S.
Jim Dwyer is the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for the New York Daily News and author of several other books.
Table of Contents
Actual Innocence Author's Note
Introduction: Wrong Numbers
1. An Innocence Project
2. An Invention
3. Seeing Things
4. False Confessions
5. White Coat Fraud
6. Snitch
7. Junk Science
8. Broken Oaths
9. Sleeping Lawyers
10. Race
11. The Death of Innocents
12. Starting Over
13. Lessons
14. Reckonings: An Update
Appendix 1: A Short List of Reforms to Protect the Innocent
Appendix 2: DNA Exonerations at a Glance
Sources
Acknowledgments
Index