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Summary: A call for a moratorium on the DP.
Review: A powerful, moving and well-written book. Away from all the moral problems with capital punishment, the Authors are able to focus on legal issues and statistics to show the problems of executing inmates. Many of the research for this book come from The Innocence Project and from the Federal Government, in the form of published reports from the Bureau of Justice Statistics.In brief, this book provides a few stories and they explain how people in this country are wrongly convicted and how scientific evidence, specifically DNA Testing, can help prove their innocence. The book also looks at other sources of problems within the judicial system - Prosecutorial/police misconduct, lazy defense counsels and death-biased juries. This book provides the reader with an educated discussion on the problems of the death penalty. I highly recommend it to everyone and challenge the proponents of the death penalty to read this and look into their own souls to determine if this is a system we want to continue.
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Summary: An excellent book for everyone to read
Review: Actual Innocence is a great book. It discusses the truth behind the scenes--what is hidden; from race, to snitches, to bad lawyers, or just overall carelessness. It mainly had to do with innocent individuals sentenced to time in prison, but thanks to DNA, most have been proven innocent. The book is well written, and creatively organized. I think everyone who picks up this book will be moved by it in some way.
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Summary: Unjustly imprisoned
Review: Actual Innocence is a very deep and detailed book that i am sure anyone would enjoy reading. We are talking about real cases of men who were put in jail for many years, being accused of crimes that they never did. Some were even send to death row,luckly the innocence project was able to help these men by testing their DNA. Reading these stories made me mad because how can someone be left in jail for so many years when they are innocent. I learned that many of these cases occurr because of mistaken eyewitness. The victim will accuse someone else that they think is the one. I really liked the book because i lets you know many things that go on in these types of cases. The best part of all is that now there is DNA that can prove someone guilty and hopefully this injustice can end.
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Summary: Excellent and frightening
Review: Actual Innocence is a very well written, easy to read, and yet frightening book. It covers everyday people whose lives were torn apart by negligence, corruption, human error, and ignorance. Its intensity is driven by the knowledge that these are true stories. After reading the book, I attended a lecture by Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld at a law school. Excellent as well! The frightening ascept is that wrongful imprisonment could happen to any one of us. There but for fortune go you or I.
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Summary: An eyeopener for everyone
Review: Actual Innocence is a well written book about fatal errors of humans in the law system, the people who lost their freedom because of it, and the fight of devoted lawyers who work pro-bone to give them their well deserved freedom back. It is written with clear words and without exaggerated emotions. It opens our eyes for the injustice that can happen to each of us. On the example of 10 people who experienced this injustice, the authors illustrate without any beatitude the necessity for changes and how important the DNA tests are going to become for the law system. Everybody should read this book because it concerns all of us.
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Summary: Actual Innocence
Review: Actual Innocence Reviewer: Jonathan Masere Pastor Neimoeller, a victim of the Nazis of Germany said: "First they came for the Jews and I did not speak out - because I was not a Jew. Then they came for the communists and I did not speak out - because I was not a communist. Next they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me." I am quoting this statement because it harkens back to the constant denials by mainstream America concerning the asymmetric application of the justice system. Blacks, of which I am one, and other ethnic minorities have been complaining about how they are chaffing under the legal system. Blood-curdling cries of foul were and still are dismissed as nothing but the incessant symptoms of the persecution syndrome. America could not be so dangerously wrong and this book bears testimony to that. This abuse of power is deeply entrenched. At the beginning, blacks had to bear its brunt and now it has started spreading its tentacles to poor white men. The affluent better pay heed to what is going on because, like Pastor Neimoeller found out, by the time those tentacles reach for them, there will be nobody left to help them. This book ought to serve as an alarm bell. It is well written and straight to the point. I would recommend its inculcation into law school carricula.
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Summary: God-like Decisions without God-like Skills
Review: Actual Innocence should be an eye-opener for anyone who has confidence in the American administration of criminal "justice." The book also serves as a databank for those whose assessments of justice in the States may be somewhat less rosy. The general format employed by Scheck, Neufeld, and Dwyer is one wherein each chapter is devoted to anecdotes illustrative of how the legal system can go wrong, how innocent people's lives are ruined, and how the technology of DNA fingerprinting is, quite literally, the last resort for many of the wrongfully convicted. Most of the chapters then close with reflections of a more general sort along the lines of related problems overall and related solutions that are in order. For me, it was these more general diagnoses of abuses and needs for reform that were of the most interest rather than any particular anecdotes: The book discusses how all too often "we see it once we believe it." Hence the ease with which junk science can be invoked by prosecutors. Also, the manufactured tales of imprisoned snitches are easily accorded credibility. Indeed, "Under recent federal sentencing guidelines that make 'cooperation' the only passport out of long, mandatory-minimum prison terms, snitch culture has been chiseled into the life of the American federal courts" (pp. 156-57). Suggested reforms include, but are in no way restricted to, immediate testing and organization of crime scene materials (pp. 244-45), the establishment of independent crime labs subjected to regulatory oversight (pp. 170-71), a narrowing of statutes providing prosecutors with broad immunity from civil suits even when they knowingly engage in misconduct (pp. 180-81, Cf. pp. 229-33.), increased resources and public support for public defenders (pp. 191-92), and the creation in each state of an "Innocence Commission." The worth of DNA fingerprinting is that, as part of the scientific process, "its results are reproducible" (p. 162). And it is noteworthy that the prompt testing and cataloging of crime scene materials, in addition to precluding the detention of the innocent, facilitate the apprehension of the guilty, as well. Tragically, though, however much DNA fingerprinting brings to light the "chillingly high rate of error" on death row, legislative and judicial reaction has been to simply limit death row appeals (pp. 218-219).
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Summary: A Revealing and Disturbing Book
Review: As a former prosecutor, ACTUAL INNOCENCE really disturbed me - not because I disagree with its suggestion that innocents are on death row and in prison (and have been executed) - but because IT IS STILL HAPPENING. It is impossible to argue with Scheck, Nuefiled and Dwyer's carefully documented (and very readable)conclusions - each chapter tells a new story about a convicted inmate eventually set free based on DNA evidence. Each story highlights a theme that pervades the American criminal justice system - be it race, unreliable eyewitness identifications, junk science, police misconduct, etc. - so you get a history of American legal development without even realizing it. The bottom line is that DNA evidwence is setting people free AND exposing the awful practices that have put innocent people in prison and on death row. This should make the reader consider: How many innocent people have ALREADY died in prison, or in the electric chair, before DNA testing was available. And why are state officials so reluctant to accept DNA testing in many cases? A credit to the authors is that they never resort to preachy rhetoric or sarcasm as they present the compelling facts demonstrating rampant error in the criminal justice system. As it turns out, the authors don't need to preach. The facts alone scream louder than any commentary could.
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Summary: Color me skeptical
Review: Author and attorney Barry Schenk is the same guy who told a national TV audience day after day that OJ was innocent. The jury believed him then. Should we believe him now? His reputation colored my reading of this dense catalogue of legal missteps... But I do agree with the previous reader reviewer who noted that the issue of wrongful convictions is shamefully overlooked by many prosecutors. I too read MEAN JUSTICE, an amazing and true book, and am glad that more people are finally taking this subject seriously. As the Texas Death Row case in the news this week illustrates, we can't provide fair justice when the defense counsel sleeps through trial--and the state courts go along with the results!...It is a same that Barry Schenk squandered so much of his credibility--and tainted DNA for so many people--by his role in the legal circus of the century.
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Summary: DNA: Not good for O.J. Simpson, but good for everyone else
Review: Barry Scheck would have us believe DNA testing is the end-all and be-all of determining the guilt or innocence of criminal suspects. Isn't he the guy who derided DNA testing in the O. J. Simpson murder trial, when it would have tremendously added to the evidence of guilt of his client, O.J. Simpson? We are now to believe he has "converted" to the other point of view, that DNA testing should be mandatory in exonerating innocently convicted people? Having said that, DO read the book, for another perspective if nothing else. Knowing personally of an erroneously convicted death row inmate in Texas who was freed after almost 20 years because of the errors of the "we got the right guy, we're sure of it" mentality and legal "rules" that seemed to serve perceptions of guilt rather than factual assessments of guilt. This exposure tells me firsthand that errors CAN and DO occur. Yet surprisingly, no-shockingly, he does not oppose the death penalty, both as a concept and for the people he knew on death row-even though he once came within two days of execution! Read the book. Not specifically as an issue of the death penalty, but as an examination of the legal system. And a reminder that the legal system, or any system, is only as accurate, precise, selfless and truthful as the people who participate in it.
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