Surviving justice
Subtitle: America's wrongfully convicted and exonerated
By: edited by Lola Vollen and Dave Eggers ; managing editor, Colin Dabkowski ; production manager, Christopher Ying ; general editors, Noria Jablonski ... [et al.] ; interviews and reporting completed by students at the University of California, Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, Neil Berman ... [et al.] ; additional reporting by, Dominic Luxford ... [et al.].
Contributors: Vollen, Lola.; Eggers, Dave.
Series: Voice of witness
Publisher: McSweeney's
Published: 2005
Place of publication: San Francisco
Language: eng
Number of pages: 497
ISBN-13: 9781932416237
Subjects: Judicial error -- United States -- Personal narratives; False imprisonment -- United States -- Personal narratives
Genres: Personal narratives.
Description: "Beverly Monroe spent seven years in prison for murdering her companion of thirteen years; in fact, 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 he was freed by DNA evidence. Michael Evans and Paul Terry each spent twenty-seven years in prison for a brutal rape and murder they did not commit. They were teenagers when they entered prison; they were middle-aged men when DNA proved their innocence. After spending years behind bars, hundreds of men and women with incontrovertible proof of their innocence including 120 from death row 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 and coercive interrogation tactics, bad science, snitches, and eyewitness misidentification. The lives of these victims of the U.S. criminal justice system were effectively wrecked. Finally free, usually after more than a decade of incarceration, they re-enter society with nothing but the scars from a harrowing descent into prison only to struggle to survive 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. There are countless others thousands by all estimates who are in prison today for crimes they did not commit. These are the stories of some of the wrongfully convicted, who have managed, often by sheer luck, to prove their innocence. Their stories are spellbinding, heartbreaking, unimaginable, and ultimately inspiring. After reading these deeply personal accounts, you will never look at the criminal justice system the same way."--Publisher's website.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 491).
Table of contents: title: 1. Christopher Ochoa: My life is a broken puzzle : Called into question ; Hard to relate ; The politics of apology.; title: 2. Juan Roberto Melendez: My mama didn't raise no killers : Prosecutorial misconduct ; At the breaking point ; Prisoners first, humans second ; Pushed to the brink.; title: 3. Gary Gauger: I stepped into a dream: A useful fiction ; The psychological toll of wrongful conviction.; title: 4. James Newsome: I am the expert : The limits of memory ; Race matters ; In house legal expertise ; School's out.; title: 5. Calvin Willis: Thank God for DNA : The price of proof ; The cost of lost time.; title: 6. John Stoll: If a five-year-old says you did it, you did it : A culture of fear ; Loosing touch with reality ; Lessons not learned.; title: 7. Beverly Monroe: Now I question everything : The right to remain silent ; Selling out.; title: 8. Michael Evans and Paul Terry: Sheep amongst wolves : Freeing the innocent ; Life after exoneration.; title: 9. David Pope: I'm still twenty-four : Flawed experts, faulty evidence ; No one else to turn to.; title: 10. Joseph Amrine: I'm a dead man walking : Defenseless ; Predators and prey ; A controlled type of chaos ; An irreversible mistake.  11. Peter Rose: Family man : So much time lost ; A victim again ; The magic bullet.; title: 12. Kevin Green: Bad things happen to good people : Grief and suspicion ; An imperfect union ; A double-bind.; title: 13. Exoneree roundtable: People don't know how lucky they are to have their liberty; title: App.A. Criminal confessions and interrogations; title: App.B. Rape victim interrogation; title: App.C. Massachusetts Compensation law; title: App.D. State by state compensation laws; title: App.E. Reform recommendations.