Description

A groundbreaking expos of how our legal system makes it nearly impossible to overturn wrongful convictions

Thousands of innocent people are behind bars in the United States But proving their innocence and winning their release is nearly impossible

In Barred legal scholar Daniel S Medwed argues that our justice systems stringent procedural rules are largely to blame for the ongoing punishment of the innocent Those rules guarantee criminal defendants just one opportunity to appeal their convictions directly to a higher court Afterward the wrongfully convicted can pursue only a few narrow remedies Even when there is strong evidence of a miscarriage of justice rigid guidelines bias and deference toward lower courts all too often prevent exoneration

Offering clear explanations of legal procedures alongside heartwrenching stories of their devastating impact Barred exposes how the system is stacked against the innocent and makes a powerful call for change

In our screwedup legal system its fairly easy to convict an innocent person and send them to prison Tragically and as Daniel S Medwed explains so clearly in Barred it is almost impossible to get them out Punishing the innocent is not just a problem in other places We do it every day in America
John Grisham

By blending tales of reallife wrongful convictions with straightforward explanations of legal procedures Medweds Barred demystifies the mysterious path for the innocent after trial His clear and engaging writing style makes the topic accessible to anyone interested in the hazards of our criminal justice system A mustreadSister Helen Prejean author of Dead Man Walking

Barred is a stunning account of the myriad procedural roadblocks that keep innocent people trapped in our nations prisons With harrowing stories from his publicdefense practice Medwed reveals how prosecutors judges and other officials revere finality and efficiency over fairness and truth By exposing this rampant disregard for defendants culpability Barred powerfully calls into question the justice of the entire criminal punishment system and proposes urgent ways to mitigate its damageDorothy Roberts author of Torn Apart

For every innocent prisoner weve freed over the past three decades countless others remain behind bars Barred brilliantly illustrates the absurdity of this situation how it is far too easy to convict the innocent and far too hard to correct those mistakes
Barry Scheck cofounder of the Innocence Project

For every newspaper photo of an innocent person exiting the prison gates clutching the hand of their triumphant lawyer there are uncountable others whom we will never allow to see that daywho will die in prison because our laws make it so difficult to prove their innocence in court In Barred Daniel S Medwed gives us an urgent tour of the darkest corners of our judicial system where persuasive evidence becomes trapped in a labyrinth of legal procedure Underlying Medweds sharp legal analysis is a political question Is this the country we want to be
Maurice Chammah author of Let the Lord Sort Them

A lucid and persuasive call for changePublishers Weekly

Informative and poignant An important addition to the literature on Americas addiction to incarcerationKirkus

Eyeopening Readers interested in criminal justice will find an elucidating look at the challenges and possibilities for the wrongfully convictedBooklist