Reddit mentions of Actual Innocence

I used to support the death penalty. Having been raised in Texas, I absorbed the pro-capital punishment culture. Only in my 40s did I start actually doing research on the death penalty and how it is applied. Reading books like Actual Innocence: When Justice Goes Wrong and How to Make it Right and many others convinced me that there is no way I can support the death penalty any longer. It is applied randomly, and the main determinant of who is sentenced to die is not the heinousness of the crime, but instead whether the defendant can afford to hire an attorney or has to rely on a public defender.

Also, reading about cases in which a forensic lab was found to have falsified results to get convictions (thereby keeping their business from the police department), detectives who routinely paid people to give "eyewitness testimony" in court, prosecutors who covered up exculpatory evidence that would have kept them from getting a conviction, judges who allowed a defense attorney to sleep in the courtroom during a trial, and more led me to believe that every single step in the "criminal justice" system is fraught with error. Over 100 people have been exonerated from death row by The Innocence Project.

It's possible to release people from prison if they are found to have been convicted wrongly. But you can't un-kill someone who has been executed for a crime he didn't commit. I used to think that capital punishment was a good thing, but I am now firmly against.

The idea that you can't go to jail if you didn't commit a crime is incredibly wrong. Please read this book.

Further, merely being accused of rape or sexual assault will attach your name to rape or sexual assault in a google search. If you think that has no potential effect on future careers I think you need a wake up call. You don't get a chance to explain that you were falsely accused when you never get an interview.

Problem is that police use a tactic that almost guarantees that a victim will pick "the guy they like" out of the line up. They have the suspect somewhere where the victim can see them before the line-up inside the police station. Then they do the line-up. Victim has seen the "perp" in custody and figures it must be that guys. The victim picks their guy. Slam dunk and compelling as hell. Problem is that some of these folks then get DNA testing after being in prison for decades. Source: http://www.amazon.com/Actual-Innocence-Justice-Wrong-Right/dp/0451209826/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1452823186&sr=8-1&keywords=actual+innocence

It helps to note also the sort of procedural and financial battles that the actually innocent encounter. And yes, a person may have done it, but legal innocence is not the same as actual innocence, mostly because legal guilt is not the same as actual guilt. For more insight I'd read this book: http://www.amazon.com/Actual-Innocence-Justice-Wrong-Right/dp/0451209826/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1302035662&sr=8-1. After reading this book and speaking to exonerees. I am at least convinced that people do not adequately consider all that goes into these determinations; it's more complicated than you did it or you didn't.

Edited to provide working link.

I would recommend Actual Innocence (http://www.amazon.com/Actual-Innocence-Justice-Wrong-Right/dp/0451209826)

and How to Think Straight About Psychology: (http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_24?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=how+to+think+straight+about+psychology+9th+edition+by+stanovich&sprefix=how+to+think+straight+ab%2Cstripbooks%2C327)

The reason I suggest the how to think straight about psychology is because professor stanovich does a great job in teaching critical thinking skills via showing how some commonly held beliefs are silly.

There's a somewhat old, but good book full of them.