|
Post by Evil Yoda on Apr 5, 2021 17:32:24 GMT -5
This book, published in 2011, describes 250 exonerees - people convicted and sentenced for various crimes, mostly rape and murder, who were later determined to be innocent and (eventually) freed. It is call for better justice.
How were these people convicted? The author devotes chapters to this. Manufactured confessions, eyewitnesses of dubious reliability, bad police, bad prosecutors, bad forensics, even jailhouse snitches paid to testify against them but whose honesty is doubtful. In most cases, DNA evidence finally proved their innocence, but a number of them had to fight to get that over the objections of prosecutors. And when found innocent a few still waited years for freedom.
It describes a system with many flaws, but that can be repaired, and presents some good options for making those repairs. Double blind lineups, better certification of forensic labs, penalties for police and prosecutors who misuse their authority, oversight commissions for the process, even simple things like procedural checklists and requiring the recording of interrogations.
If you can read those book and you still believe it is okay to execute criminals, given how rickety the system presently is, I would be very surprised.
Here in Maryland you can get it through Marina if your local library system does not have it. Amazon also sells it in various forms.
|
|
|
Post by zenwalk on Aug 7, 2021 21:28:16 GMT -5
This book, published in 2011, describes 250 exonerees - people convicted and sentenced for various crimes, mostly rape and murder, who were later determined to be innocent and (eventually) freed. It is call for better justice. How were these people convicted? The author devotes chapters to this. Manufactured confessions, eyewitnesses of dubious reliability, bad police, bad prosecutors, bad forensics, even jailhouse snitches paid to testify against them but whose honesty is doubtful. In most cases, DNA evidence finally proved their innocence, but a number of them had to fight to get that over the objections of prosecutors. And when found innocent a few still waited years for freedom. It describes a system with many flaws, but that can be repaired, and presents some good options for making those repairs. Double blind lineups, better certification of forensic labs, penalties for police and prosecutors who misuse their authority, oversight commissions for the process, even simple things like procedural checklists and requiring the recording of interrogations. If you can read those book and you still believe it is okay to execute criminals, given how rickety the system presently is, I would be very surprised. Here in Maryland you can get it through Marina if your local library system does not have it. Amazon also sells it in various forms. The gun pointing boneheads. the McCloskys in St Louis, were pardoned before a number of convicts who have had convincing evidence of their innocence, in one case for 40 years! Sloppy justice comes from sloppy administration of justice. The pressure of backlogs understandably can cause bad decisions. The contamination of the system begins when it no longer cares.
|
|