Product Description
The Best of McSweeney's Volume 2 the second instalment of Dave Eggers's crash course in what McSweeney's is all about brings together more stories from the first ten issues of the magazine. Jonathan Ames, Judy Budnitz, Glen David Gold, Jonathan Lethem and A.M. Homes are amongst the writers spreading their wings in this fine collection and showing once more why McSweeney's is now a byword for brilliance, innovation and the unexpected. ... Read more

Product Description
Beverly Monroe spent seven years in prison for murdering her companion of thirteen years; even though he had killed himself. Christopher Ochoa was persuaded to confess to a rape and murder he did not commit, and served twelve years of his life sentence before being freed by DNA evidence. Michael Evans and Paul Terry each served twenty-seven years in prison for a rape and murder they did not commit. They were teenagers when they entered prison and middle-aged when DNA proved their innocence.

After spending years behind bars, hundreds of men and women with incontrovertible proof of their innocence have been released from America’s prisons. They were wrongfully convicted because of problems that plague many criminal proceedings—inept defense lawyers, overzealous prosecutors, deceitful interrogation tactics, misidentifications, and more. Finally free, usually after more than a decade of incarceration, the wrongly condemned re-enter society with nothing but scars from prison life only to struggle for survival on the outside.

The thirteen men and women portrayed here, and the hundreds of others who have been exonerated, are the tip of the iceberg. By all estimates, there are thousands of innocent victims in prison today. Surviving Justice tells their unimaginable and inspiring stories. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (9)

It happens all the time: "Justice" system executes innocent people
It happens all the time: "Justice" system executes innocent people,

who are built cases toandmade guilty... because of the bureaucracy and the need for a "scapegoat"

Because the policemen could not find the true criminal.

Wow!! Bowled Over
Let me add my words to the chorus of praise that accompanies this amazing, engrossing, infuriating book. Thirteen people slammed into prison due to poor or nearly nonexistent defense, overzealous prosecution, junk science and cockeyed local politics tell their stories as oral history.The narrators talk in the first person and range through the socioeconomic spectrum from a semi-nomadic, illiterate Puerto Rican immigrant to a well salaried professional engaged in research at a large corporation.

Their testimony is not always grammatical, but it is articulate, even eloquent.These persons spent completely unnecessary terms in prison ranging from three years to 25 years, and they most likely would still be there if not for DNA testing and the patient work of the Innocence Project, which specializes in such cases.

How dare we feel superior to 19th-Century fictive prisoners like the Count of Monte Cristo or Jean Valjean (Les Miserables)?Right here in the USA, these our fellow citizens have suffered torturous police interrogations, brutal guards, inedible food, nonexistent or poor medical care, indifferent "justice" bureaucracies and predatory inmate populations.For no reason whatsoever.Even the luckiest and best-situated of these people were bankrupted by expensive DNA testing, their lives interrupted in young adulthood or middle age, with little if any money compensation given to them on the way out.

In my opinion this is THE book to start with regarding innocent convicts, but there are other good ones, too, particularly ACTUAL INNOCENCE by the three men most associated with The Innocence Project.Truly, it is frightening what can happen here in this country with our alleged "bias toward defendants."Basically the authorities railroaded people when and how they pleased with no regard to consequences.And it has stayed that way.

the tip of the iceberg
This powerful study adds more evidence to the unfortunate truth that many innocent persons are wrongly convicted, sometimes by prosecutors who hide the evidence that would lead to a not guilty verdict.

The criminal justice system, in the face of so many allegations of wrongful conviction, usually fights ferociously to avoid any objective review of questionable practices and results.

There is significant documentation of such improper convictions, in a series by the Chicago Tribune, in a study by Columbia Law School, and in the marvelous work of Barry Scheck and his colleagues in the Innocence Project Actual Innocence: When Justice Goes Wrong and How to Make it Right.

Too many prosecutors abuse their power, and they almost always get away with it.

My second novel, A Good Conviction,tells the story of a young man wrongfully convicted in a high profile Central Park murder, brought about by a prosecutor who knew the defendant was actually innocent and hid the exculpatory evidence that would have led to a not guilty verdict.

Several prosecutors and criminal appeals attorneys helped me with the legal aspects of a Brady appeal in New York State, and all of them agreed that what I portrayed in my story was both realistic and all too possible.

Readers have found "A Good Conviction" to be fast paced, exciting, and heartbreaking.

Dan Slepian, network producer of many crime and legal news shows, says ... "Having spent countless hours working with detectives, courts, attorneys, and wrongly convicted inmates I was most impressed with how well researched and accurate your narrative was. You really nailed it. In addition, it was a great read."

Judge (ret.) Leslie Crocker Snyder, former Manhattan Assistant District Attorney, first sex crimes prosecutor in the U.S.(25 to Life: The Truth, the Whole Truth, and Nothing But the Truth), says ... "A Good Conviction is a well written, well paced, and fascinating tale of prosecutorial abuse in the Manhattan DA's office. Makes one wonder how many other times something like this has occurred and just how high the abuse is actually sanctioned."

Michael Radelet, one of the authors of In Spite Of Innocence: Erroneous Convictions in Capital Cases, a study of over 400 cases of persons wrongly convicted of crimes carrying the death penalty says ... "A Good Conviction is an unusually gripping story of an erroneous conviction and the passionate fight to correct that injustice. Weinstein's account of what a bad prosecutor does to Joshua Blake provides a frightening and realistic parallel to many of the true life cases we documented in our study."


LEW WEINSTEIN

gripping, heart wrenching first hand accounts of innocent convicts
This should be compulsory reading for all jurists, and citzenship-seeking immigrants, and, well, everyone.
The assumption that "where there's smoke, there's fire" must be erased from our brains, and this is just the book to prove it.

Opened My Eyes!
I read Dave Eggers first book, (funny title, something about ....of a Genius Mind")I enjoyed it so much that when I found this one I grabbed it up.Little did I know I would learn such horrific things re: our justice system. I have requested my 2 adult sons read it too.We never know when we might be in such a gruesome situation!My heart goes out to all the men and women who are unjustly arrested, interrogated, been mistaken for another and imprisoned for a crime they did notcommit!! Everyone should read this. ... Read more