Jessica Henry, author of the book Smoke But No Fire – Convicting the Innocent of Crimes that Never Happened, drops by to discuss the book’s topic; people convicted of crimes that never happened. You read that right; people are often convicted of crimes that never took place, and many have served years in prison and have had their lives ruined in a Kafkaesque nightmare. If you think this cannot happen in our criminal justice system, think again. It happens. It happens a lot.
In this podcast, Jessica talks about the ways that people often fall prey to a combination of overly ambitious prosecutors, corrupt police officers, lying witnesses, questionable accusers, invalid forensic evidence and indifferent defense lawyers. She also makes a number of powerful suggestions on how we might fix the system to prevent such atrocities from occurring in the first place, including how ordinary citizens can get involved.