Looks at the adversary system used in Britain and its former colonies, including Australia, the US, Canada, India, Ireland, New Zealand, and South Africa. Details the origins and methods of the more widespread investigative (inquisitorial) system used in other countries including Japan and South Korea. Author is Walkley Award winner.
A legal scholar exposes the psychological forces that undermine the American criminal justice system, arguing that unless hidden biases are addressed, social inequality will widen, and proposes reforms to prevent injustice and help achieve true equality before the law.
A gruesome suicide, a likely murder, a tragic plane crash, wrongful imprisonment, and gripping courtroom scenes draw readers into this compelling story giving them a frightening perspective on justice and who should be accountable when evidence is withheld. This is the true story of the strong-arm, illegal, and unethical tactics used by headline-grabbing federal prosecutors in their narcissistic pursuit of power. Its scope reaches from the US Department of Justice to the US Senate to the White House and is a scathing attack on prosecutors, judges, and all those who turned a blind eye to egregious injustices in the aftermath of the Enron collapse. The ramifications continue today as this corrupt cabal of former prosecutors now populates powerful political positions.
Criminal defense attorney Tex Hunter has a target on his back.Defending an accused killer is never easy, but when a homeless teenager is charged with the murder of a retired Chicago Police Detective, the pressure builds to breaking point.Sidney McCann was no ordinary cop. He wasn't a captain, he wasn't a beat cop, and he wasn't an average desk jockey-he was one of the most corrupt, twisted, and ruthless cops the Chicago Police Department had ever produced. But that history, that long line of accusations, didn't matter to the current crop of police officers. They were a family, and McCann was one of their own. They would protect the reputation of their department, no matter the cost.Fighting against police brutality, corrupt businessmen, and gang members, Hunter follows the evidence trail, leading him deeper than expected. The closer he gets to the truth, the more others want him silenced. The evidence Hunter uncovers provides the chance to reopen a case closed more than thirty years ago...But to do that, to take that gamble, to take that chance, Tex Hunter must risk everything he loves...
Now in an expanded paperback edition, Innocence Project attorney M. Chris Fabricant presents an insider’s journey into the heart of a broken, racist system of justice and the role junk science plays in maintaining the status quo. "Fierce and absorbing . . . Fabricant chronicles the battles he and his colleagues have fought to unravel a century of fraudulent experts and the bad court decisions that allowed them to thrive." —Washington Post From CSI to Forensic Files to the celebrated reputation of the FBI crime lab, forensic scientists have long been mythologized in American popular culture as infallible crime solvers. Juries put their faith in "expert witnesses" and innocent people have been executed as a result. Innocent people are still on death row today, condemned by junk science. In 2012, the Innocence Project began searching for prisoners convicted by junk science, and three men, each convicted of capital murder, became M. Chris Fabricant's clients. Junk Science and the American Criminal Justice System chronicles the fights to overturn their wrongful convictions and to end the use of the "science" that destroyed their lives. Weaving together courtroom battles from Mississippi to Texas to New York City and beyond, Fabricant takes the reader on a journey into the heart of a broken, racist system of justice and the role forensic science plays in maintaining the status quo. At turns gripping, enraging, illuminating, and moving, Junk Science is a meticulously researched insider's perspective of the American criminal justice system. Previously untold stories of wrongful executions, corrupt prosecutors, and quackery masquerading as science animate Fabricant’s true crime narrative. The paperback edition features a brand-new index as well as an updated introduction and final chapter chronicling the Innocence Project’s continued fight against junk science in courtrooms across America.
The author asserts that "women are losing their economic security, their homes, their child support, and even their children because of corrupt divorce proceedings."--Jacket.
Examines the causes for mass incarceration of Americans and calls for the reform of the bail system. Traces the history of bail, how it has come to be an oppressive tool of the courts, and makes recommendations for reforming the bail system and alleviating the mass incarceration problem.
The legal system is awash with excessive and incomprehensible information. Yet many of us assume that the unrelenting torrent of information pouring into various legal programs is both inevitable and unstoppable. We have become complacent; but it does not have to be this way. Incomprehensible! argues that surrendering to incomprehensibility is a bad mistake. Drawing together evidence from diverse fields such as consumer protection, financial regulation, patents, chemical control, and administrative and legislative processes, this book identifies a number of important legal programs that are built on the foundational assumption that 'more information is better'. Each of these legal processes have been designed in ways that ignore the imperative of meaningful communication. To rectify this systemic problem, the law must be re-designed to pay careful attention to the problem of incomprehensibility.
Operation Greylord is the definitive account of the largest corruption bust ever in the history of the United States, told from the prospective of Terrance Hake , who worked under cover posing as a corrupt prosecutor.