Books about Wrongful from Amazon.com

When David Ball on Damages was first published in 2001, it changed the way attorneys seek damages The book provides step-by-step guidance for attorneys seeking money for their clients. Ball explains why jurors give, why they do not, and how to motivate them to do the former instead of the latter. He walks readers through voir dire, opening, testimony, and closing, providing practical, effective, and innovative methods for pursuing damages. Now, in this expanded, second edition, Ball includes methods to contend with the way today’s jurors view lawyers and their clients. The techniques provide tools to counter sophisticated opposition tactics, the public mood, and laws and rules that continue to grow more hostile..
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Since the 1993 publication of her memoir Dead Man Walking and the 1995 film it inspired, Sister Helen Prejean has become a powerful and articulate presence in the fight against the death penalty in America. In The Death of Innocents, Prejean focuses her argument on the ways in which an unjust system may be killing innocent people. She tells the story of two inmates she came to know as a spiritual adviser. Dobie Williams, a poor black man with an IQ of 65 from rural Louisiana, was executed after being represented by incompetent counsel and found guilty by an all-white jury based mostly on conjecture and speculation. Joseph O'Dell was convicted of murder after the court heard from an inmate who later admitted to giving false testimony for his own benefit. O'Dell received neither an evidentiary hearing nor potentially exculpatory DNA testing and was executed, insisting on his innocence the whole while. Besides exploring the shaky cases against them, Prejean describes in vivid detail the thoughts and feelings of Williams and O'Dell as their bids for clemency fail and they are put to death. The second part of the book details "the machinery of death," the legal process that Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun, dismayed at the inequities of the death penalty, cited as his reason for resigning and that current justice Antonin Scalia has boasted of being a part of. Prejean is impassioned as she describes what she sees as an arrogant attitude by both Scalia and the contemporary judicial system. Her chance confrontation with Scalia at an airport is a gripping collision of disparate worlds. In recent years, DNA testing has overturned the convictions of scores of prisoners, including many on death row. As the death penalty is increasingly called into question, Sister Helen Prejean will surely be a force in that debate. --John Moe.
Price: $8.43 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Who knew that being a Good Samaritan would lead Barbara Holloway to face her biggest challenge ever: being named prime suspect in a high-profile kidnapping?

Barbara's peace at her retreat on the Oregon coast is shattered when a terrified young boy leads her to a cabin in the woods where his battered mother has clearly been left for dead. Barbara runs for help, but by the time she returns both mother and son are gone.

The puzzle deepens when Barbara learns the boy she met is the grandson of a prominent family…and they have accused her of aiding his disappearance.

With the help of her father, Frank, she delves into the mystery, only to realize the kidnapping is a ruse for a more sinister plan—one that pits the meaning of family against cold hard cash.

Troubling obstacles thwart Barbara's every move—from the

justice system that employs her to the false identities of those around her. Yet none will compare with the shocking murder scene that awaits her..
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"Gould…has produced a book that will ensure that the lessons from these wrongful convictions are available for study and, we hope, remembered and used to enact needed reforms…this book is a valuable addition to what we are learning about wrongful convictions."
—WAMU-FM The Kojo Nnamdi Show

"Gould's book...is a masterpiece of the genre. He combines big-picture legal theory with details from a dozen Virginia miscarriages of justice, including mistaken eyewitness identification and prosecutorial misconduct."
—Steve Weinberg, The Legal Times

Convicted Yet Innocent: The Legal Times Review

”A thoughtful and disturbing account of his founding in 2003 of the Innocence Commission for Virginia (ICVA) to investigate wrongful convictions. . . . Written for the general public, Gould's book has important lessons for attorneys and policymakers as well.”
—Library Journal

“The Innocence Commission adds to the scholarship in the area of wrongful convictions in several important ways and with riveting case descriptions.”
—Daniel S. Medwed, University of Utah, S.J. Quinney College of Law

DNA testing and advances in forensic science have shaken the foundations of the U.S. criminal justice system. One of the most visible results is the exoneration of inmates who were wrongly convicted and incarcerated, many of them sentenced to death for crimes they did not commit. This has caused a quandary for many states: how can claims of innocence be properly investigated and how can innocent inmates be reliably distinguished from the guilty? In answer, some states have created “innocence commissions” to establish policies and provide legal assistance to the improperly imprisoned.

The Innocence Commission describes the creation and first years of the Innocence Commission for Virginia (ICVA), the second innocence commission in the nation and the first to conduct a systematic inquiry into all cases of wrongful conviction. Written by Jon B. Gould, the Chair of the ICVA, who is a professor of justice studies and an attorney, the author focuses on twelve wrongful conviction cases to show how and why wrongful convictions occur, what steps legal and state advocates took to investigate the convictions, how these prisoners were ultimately freed, and what lessons can be learned from their experiences.

Gould recounts how a small band of attorneys and other advocates — in Virginia and around the country — have fought wrongful convictions in court, advanced the subject of wrongful convictions in the media, and sought to remedy the issue of wrongful convictions in the political arena. He makes a strong case for the need for Innocence Commissions in every state, showing that not only do Innocence Commissions help to identify weaknesses in the criminal justice system and offer workable improvements, but also protect society by helping to ensure that actual perpetrators are expeditiously identified, arrested, and brought to trial. Everyone has an interest in preventing wrongful convictions, from police officers and prosecutors, who seek the latest and best investigative techniques, to taxpayers, who want an efficient criminal justice system, to suspects who are erroneously pursued and sometimes convicted.

Free of legal jargon and written for a general audience, The Innocence Commission is instructive, informative, and highly compelling reading.

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"This important book, joining many others about the possibility and actuality of executing innocent persons . . . examines the full range of potential and real cases in which innocent people are falsely accused, convicted, and incarcerated and describes the variety of missteps in our criminal justice system that lead to unjust imprisonment . . . . In six clearly written chapters the authors examine the reality of unjust incarceration . . . . The last chapter may be the most compelling; the authors recommend how to reduce the number of errors in our criminal justice system. For anyone concerned about justice; highly recommended for public and university libraries."

--Choice

"In this well-researched and fascinating volume, the authors mix materials from case files in the literature and reported in numerous research reports and in the media. There is great reliance on research studies, national and international, on the accuracy of eyewitness perceptions. Interviews with the exonerated and some of the actors in the system are included as are trial documents and court transcripts as well as media reports on the trials. There is no other book on the ''guilty'' but innocent that has so broad a focus and so much rich detail. It is a good read, indeed."

--from the Foreword by Simon Dinitz, Professor Emeritus, The Ohio State University

Even if the American system of criminal justice proved 99.5% accurate, it would still generate more than 10,000 wrongful convictions a year--and those would reflect only the eight serious index crimes. Each time an innocent offender is wrongfully convicted, the actual offender remains free to continue victimizing. Insightful and stimulating, Convicted But Innocent grapples with the very specific, difficult issues surrounding wrongful convictions and the implications for society. Using fascinating case samples and survey data that reflect the possible magnitude of the problem, the authors detail the major factors associated with this stunning potential for error in our criminal justice system. Although no system of justice can be perfect, this volume shows that a focus on preventable errors can substantially reduce the number of conviction injustices. Committed to that end, authors C. Ronald Huff, Arye Rattner, and Edward Sagarin also examine public policy implications and recommendations for putting their findings to work.

Intriguing, and about a problem that is frightening to contemplate, Convicted But Innocent offers a stimulating read for students, academics, researchers, law enforcement and corrections professionals, and policy makers.

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Price: $45.50 [Notify me when price goes down.]

"A chilling chronicle of what can happen when the criminal justice system goes awry."
—Publishers Weekly

"Innocent is an excellent recommendation to make the next time someone questions the need for further criminal justice reform."
—New York Law Journal

"This should be required reading for everyone who gives a damn about justice in this country."
—Mickey Sherman, CBS News legal analyst

"Christianson succeeds in raising reasonable doubts and questions about the integrity of our criminal justice system. Written with perceptiveness and sympathy for the plight of the wrongly convicted, [Innocent] is an excellent addition to the literature on miscarriages of justice."
—Justicia

Innocent graphically documents forty-two recent criminal cases to find evidence of shocking miscarriages of justice, especially in murder cases. Based upon interviews with more than 200 people and reviews of hundreds internal case files, court records, smoking-gun memoranda, and other documents, Scott Christianson gets inside the legal cases, revealing the mistakes, abuses, and underlying factors that led to miscarriages of justice, while also describing how determined prisoners, post-conviction attorneys, advocates, and journalists struggle against tremendous odds to try to win their exonerations.

The result is a powerful work that recounts the human costs of a criminal justice system gone awry, and shows us how wrongful convictions can—and do—happen everywhere.

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Price: $11.50 [Notify me when price goes down.]