Well, that was completely terrifying. A collection of stories about people who were minding their own business when suddenly they are being tried and convicted of crimes they didn't commit. Spending years upon years in prison, having their entire life controlled down to the minuscule details and knowing the entire time that they shouldn't even be there. Yelling their innocence to the world with no one interested in listening. And let's be real, most of these tales are from young black males just going about their lives when they are all of a sudden picked out of a lineup. They don't really touch on this specific issue, but it's there in between the lines.

Caldwell has put together this collection of true stories of exonerees as interpreted by various authors. As a result there are various styles of storytelling, and that was the one glaring thing I didn't appreciate about the book. I believe she was going for gut-punches over actual explanations of the atrocities committed against these individuals which has it's own merits. For myself, I would have preferred more detailed, factual deep-dives but I know that's not what they were trying to do here. That being said, there were stories that had more depth in the post-chapter notes than in the story itself. The last one in particular does this, which was frustrating as a reader.

These stories are timely, horrifying, and a topic that everyone needs to be knowledgeable on. We all have a chance to sit on a jury that can decide the fates of similar people and truly understanding the impact of your decisions on that bench is important. However, this collection was only successful up to a point and I think more substance was needed in order to really drive their message home.

<h2>Anatomy of Innocence</h2>
<h4>edited by Laura Caldwell and Leslie S. Klinger</h4>

What an intriguing concept: have a mystery writer--someone who makes a living inventing crimes and delving into a fictitious criminal justice system--with a real-life exoneree, someone for whom a red herring was a life-altering tragedy and not just an entertaining plot twist.

I will admit I didn't read the blurb carefully enough: I hadn't realized that these would be <i>retellings</i> by the writers rather than interviews. Why is the distinction so important? Because retellings run the risk of stealing the speaker's voice, transforming the story to fulfill the writer's preconceived notions, and commodifying the result. A collection like this is powerful but also dangerous: while it can give voices to those who have already been forced to suffer in silence, it can also stifle them. To my mind, examples of both exist in the collection. The worst offender, in my opinion, was Laurie R. King, who retells the story in present tense from Towler's perspective. She attributes incredibly naive thoughts to him in the simplest language and is so condescending that it made my teeth hurt. I generally was less happy about the chapters that tried to "novelify" people's lives with overblown drama and suspense, but I deeply appreciated those that gave an account of the interview itself as a journalist would. Probably my favourite retelling was Lee Child's recounting of Kirk Bloodsworth's story, which is told as an interview, with Bloodsworth telling his story in his own words. It is touching, and most importantly, it doesn't pretend to go behind his eyes but gets out of the way and helps him tell his story.

The crimes and circumstances run the gamut, from a woman accused of shaking a baby to death to a murdered wife to a gang shooting to a vicious rape, from a clear case of racist scapegoating to mistaken eyewitnesses to damning circumstantial evidence. Many of the cases involve police who forced confessions by torturing their suspects. In some of the stories, exoneration means the real culprit was found; in others, that the state was shown to have been corrupt or not to have proved its case. (As a side note, all of the stories are present unambiguous innocence of the exoneree and negligence or evil on the part of the state, which often means dropping other aspects of the cases that muddy the water. While I understand the rationale, I prefer not to be fed an oversimplification.) Each chapter ends with an editor's note discussing the history and current status of one part of the case, from DNA testing to negligent counsel to faulty forensic science to forced confessions and mistaken eyewitnesses. If you weren't aware of the extremely broken state of the US justice system, this collection will be an eyeopener. Even if you are, <i>Anatomy of Innocence</i> provides an interesting opportunity to hear the repercussions of a fallible justice system on people's lives.

With movements like Black Lives Matter at the forefront of society right now, and multiple documentaries about wrongful convictions such as Steven Avery and The West Memphis Three out, there has never been a better time for this book to come out and be read. This topic is so important.

Reading about the lives of these poor, innocent human beings being treated like they're dirt, like they're less than dirt, is devastating. A number of these stories actually brought tears to my eyes. How this injustice goes on, I can't fathom. In many of these stories we hear how there are alibis that prove the person wasn't there to commit the crime, but they convict them anyway. There are confessions from other people to crimes, yet they will convict someone else .There is someone else's DNA on a victims body but they will commit someone whose DNA is not on the body. And possibly the worst one of them all, there are statements from VICTIMS that the person they have arrested is not the right person, yet they will still convict them. How can a legal system, that's supposed to protect us and who we're supposed to trust, let this happen? It makes my blood boil.

In this book, each person's story is written by a prolific crime writer, so all of these accounts are really well written and they really bring out raw emotions in you because they're so well presented and you can feel the exonerees pain.

Many of these people spent over a decade, if not over two decides of their life trapped in the walls of dirty prisons for crimes they were innocent of, such as murder, child murder, rape and GBH. The brutality of the officers arresting these people makes me sick. Literal torture is used on innocent people, as young as 17, to coax a false confession out of them, all because they want to be able to arrest someone. What makes me sicker is that these officers and the higher powers who turn(ed) a blind eye to this kind of abuse are never charged or made to own up to their brutalities AND because of the idiocy of these *insert the worst possible swear word and insults here* policemen, real child sex offenders and heartless murderers are NEVER CAUGHT.

This book is hopeful, but it is also heart breaking and while I could go on forever talking about the hatred and rage that this book makes me feel, but I'm going to end it with this instead.

Gloria Killian

David Bates

Ray Towler

Michael Evans

Ken Wyniemko

Kirk Bloodworth

Audrey Edmunds

Alton Logan

Peter Reilly

Ginny Lefever

Bill Dillon

Jeff Deskovic

Antoine Day

Jerry Miller

Juan Rivera

You are brave and you are strong. Thank you for sharing your stories with us and shining a light on a subject so often ignored. I hope the world does nothing but right for you from here on in. You, over anyone, deserve it.

I have been inspired. I am now going to look into the UK's own Innocence Group and see what I can do to help those 10% who are wrongly convicted and being left to rot in prison.

Thanks to Netgalley and W. W. Norton & Company for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

Every year, we have students who study The Innocence Project and wrongful convictions. They and others will certainly be interested in the soon-to-be-released ANATOMY OF INNOCENCE edited by Laura Caldwell, founder/director of Life After Innocence at Loyola University Chicago School of Law and by and Leslie S. Klinger, best-selling author. This text features the stories, fascinating in themselves, of 15 exonerated individuals, all written with the help of prominent mystery and thriller writers like Sara Paretsky. For example, Phil Margolin relates the story of Bill Dillon, a Floridian wrongfully convicted of murder who spent more than two and a half decades in prison, only to be released after acting as his own lawyer.

Each chapter seems to focus on an aspect of criminal justice (e.g., arrest, trial, appeal, eventual freedom). One is written by John Mankiewicz and deals with Jerry Miller, imprisoned in Illinois for a quarter of a century. This chapter points out how corrupt the Chicago police force was, working to convict a man whose palm print and blood type did not match evidence found at the scene. Connections to Chicago are plentiful since other Illinois exonerees like Juan Rivera and David Bates are profiled. New Trier grad Scott Turow wrote the introduction and ANATOMY OF INNOCENCE also contains a previously unpublished essay by Arthur Miller discussing guilt and innocence. Starred review from Kirkus.

Links in live post:
The Innocence Project: https://www.innocenceproject.org/
Life After Innocence: http://www.luc.edu/law/academics/clinicalprograms/lifeafterinnocence/

I was given this book from NetGalley in exchange for a honest review. The miscarriage of justice is heartbreaking. Couldn't put it down.

This book is absolutely fascinating. I liked that each author told a story of someone wrongfully convicted and their process through our judicial system. Very enlightening and terrifying that this has occurred. I would hope that there would be future books as I am sure that there are a multitude of others who are in our prison system that still need to be set free.

This book will take you through a variety of emotions; anger, happiness, disbelief. All the stories are of people incarcerated unjustly, with no actual evidence against them. It reads like a novel, as you cannot believe some of the things law enforcement did to charge someone with a crime that was obvious they did not commit.
These men and women in these stories had happy endings, if you can call it that after spending years in prison for something they did not do. They were able to have their innocent proven and was released. Some were given compensation for the years they were in prison, but really how can one put a price on that? It makes you wonder about the many others that are incarcerated unjustly and is still spending days, months, years in prison. I truly enjoyed the stories and the association that authors had with them. This was a really nice concept. This book is very enlightening and eye-opening. One bit of advice, have everything done before you start reading this book, because you will not want to stop. Thanks to NetGalley, the editors, and the publisher for granting me my wish to read this book in return for my honest review.