Actual Innocence: When Justice Goes Wrong and How to Make it Right
by NAL Trade

	Actual Innocence: When Justice Goes Wrong and How to Make it Right
	Customer Rating: Sales Rank: 20240 Available from Amazon
	$10.88

Book Description

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, <i>Actual Innocence</i> sheds light on "a system that tolerates lying prosecutors, slumbering defense attorneys and sloppy investigators" (<i>Salt Lake Tribune</i>)-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.

Reader Reviews

Most citizens trust the justice system to do the right thing in enforcing the law. Actual Innocence provides an inside look at a criminal justice system that does whatever it takes to convict those who appear guilty, regardless of the truth. Overbearing prosecutors hide evidence of innocence; police ignore exculpatory evidence and alternative avenues of investigation to focus on someone they "like" for the crime; forensic scientists are incompetent or downright fraudlent; defense lawyers sleep through death penalty trials. Each chapter focuses on a part of the system that is vulnerable to wrongfully convicting capital defendants and uses actual cases to illustrate associated issues.

In the end, the authors take on the question of how the system can be improved and provide a laundry list of suggestions for reforms that would minimize chances of wrongful conviction. Every state and federal legislator should at least read this section. However, after reading the book, it is worth asking how many cases of wrongful conviction cannot be righted because of the lack of DNA evidence. This has serious implications for use of the death penalty.

This is an engaging and accessible book written in a compelling style. In the years I have assigned it for a college level course, countless students have reported that it changed their ideas about the criminal justice system.