Actual Innocence: Five Days to Execution, and Other Dispatches From the Wrongly Convicted

The Innocence Project is a pro bono civil rights organization that helps innocent people who have been unjustly imprisoned win their freedom through DNA testing. Run by Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld (known for their roles in the O.J. Simpson murder trial), the project has thus far managed to free 43 wrongly convicted people and has taken on the cases of over 200 more. In Actual Innocence, Scheck, Neufeld, and Pulitzer-winning columnist Jim Dwyer tell the stories of 10 of the men they have helped. How did these men wind up in prison–some on death row–for rapes and murders they didn’t commit? The causes range from mistaken identification by the victims to sloppy police work–and, in some cases, outright dereliction of duty or fabrication of evidence. Far too often, cops lock on to their suspect early and decide that their instincts can’t possibly be wrong–an attitude that can persist even after the falsely accused has been exonerated. “If he is innocent,” says one investigator of a man who spent seven years in prison, “I wish him a good life, but I will have no remorse for him. I have no remorse for anyone that I have ever arrested.” Though the writing is not always graceful, what matters in Actual Innocence is not the quality of the prose but the importance of the Innocence Project’s work. Scheck and Neufeld’s commitment to justice is evident in each of these stories, and the problems they force us to address–not just concerning the imprisonment of innocent people but in restoring their lives upon release–cannot be ignored.