In this revised edition of their concise, readable, yet wide-ranging book, Greg Berman and Aubrey Fox tackle a question students and scholars of law, criminology, and political science constantly face: what mistakes have led to the problems that pervade the criminal justice system in the United States? The reluctance of criminal justice policymakers to talk openly about failure, the authors argue, has stunted the public conversation about crime in this country and stifled new ideas. It has also contributed to our inability to address such problems as chronic offending in low-income neighborhoods, an overreliance on incarceration, the misuse of pretrial detention, and the high rates of recidivism among parolees. Berman and Fox offer students and policymakers an escape from this fate by writing about failure in the criminal justice system. Their goal is to encourage a more forthright dialogue about criminal justice, one that acknowledges that many new initiatives fail and that no one knows for certain how to reduce crime. For the authors, this is not a source of pessimism, but a call to action. This revised edition is updated with a new foreword by Cyrus R. Vance, Jr., and afterword by Greg Berman.

COURT REFORM ON TRIAL is a recognized study of innovation in the process of criminal justice, and why it so often fails--despite the best intentions of judges, administrators, and reformers. The arc of innovation and disappointment is analyzed through such programs as bail reform, pretrial diversion, speedy trials, and determinate sentencing. The much-maligned system of plea bargaining shifts power to prosecutors away from judges, and formal trials recede in importance--but is that really the problem? Perhaps failure lies in unrealistic expectations, splintered systems and decisionmaking, waning political will, unempowered constituencies, and reformers' hubris. Feeley analyzes the persistent failure and proposes insightful pathways out of the cycle. First commissioned as a study in the influential Twentieth Century Fund series, the book is accessible for today's readers as part of the Classics of Law & Society series of Quid Pro Books. It adds a reflective preface by the author and a new foreword by Greg Berman, Executive Director of the Center for Court Innovation. Calling it an "intellectual touchstone" that's "brimming with energy not resignation," Berman writes that the book "has all of the hallmarks of Feeley's best work. Lucid prose. Idiosyncratic analysis. A willingness to speak truth to vested interests. And a commitment to describing the way the world actually works from a ground-level perspective--as opposed to the official versions of how systems theoretically should function." New ebook edition features active TOC, linked Notes, and proper formatting in a modern digital presentation.

This is a book about the law's failure as a system of empirical inquiry. While the US Supreme Court repeatedly says that the aim of a trial is to find out the truth about a crime, there is abundant evidence that many of the rules of evidence and legal procedure are not truth-conducive. Quite the contrary; many are truth-thwarting. Relevant evidence of defendant's guilt is often excluded; reasonable inferences from the available evidence are likewise often excluded. When a defendant elects not to testify, jurors are told to draw no inculpatory inferences from the former's refusal to be questioned. If evidence of prior crimes committed by the defendant is admitted (and often it is excluded), jurors are strictly told to use them only for deciding whether the defendant lied during his testimony and not as evidence of his guilt. Making matters worse, the most important evidence rule of all (saying that defendant can be convicted only if there are no reasonable doubts about his guilt) is monumentally vague; and judges are under firm instruction to decline jurors' frequent requests to explain what a 'reasonable doubt' is. Lastly, this book examines the fact that American courts collect little information about how often they convict the innocent and no information about how often they acquit the guilty. This is tragic because ignorance of the error rates in trials and in plea bargains means that citizens have no grounds for confidence in the judicial system; such a condition of non-transparency should be unacceptable in a democracy. Reform is urgent and this book sketches some of the necessary changes.

The authors examine the various steps within the criminal justice system which have resulted in the conviction of the innocent, and suggest remedies as to how miscarriages might be avoided in the future. The contributors comprise academics, campaigners and practitioners

Addressing the specific issues surrounding wrongful convictions and their implications for society, Convicted but Innocent includes: survey data concerning the possible magnitude of the problem and its causes; fascinating actual case samples; detailed analyses of the major factors associated with wrongful conviction; discussion of public policy implications; and recommendations for reducing the occurrence of such convictions. The authors maintain that while no system of justice can be perfect, a focus on preventable errors can substantially reduce the number of current conviction injustices.

Beginning with the premise that the principal function of a criminal trial is to find out the truth about a crime, Larry Laudan examines the rules of evidence and procedure that would be appropriate if the discovery of the truth were, as higher courts routinely claim, the overriding aim of the criminal justice system. Laudan mounts a systematic critique of existing rules and procedures that are obstacles to that quest. He also examines issues of error distribution by offering the first integrated analysis of the various mechanisms - the standard of proof, the benefit of the doubt, the presumption of innocence and the burden of proof - for implementing society's view about the relative importance of the errors that can occur in a trial.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A renowned journalist and legal commentator exposes the unchecked power of the prosecutor as a driving force in America’s mass incarceration crisis—and charts a way out. “An important, thoughtful, and thorough examination of criminal justice in America that speaks directly to how we reduce mass incarceration.”—Bryan Stevenson, author of Just Mercy “This harrowing, often enraging book is a hopeful one, as well, profiling innovative new approaches and the frontline advocates who champion them.”—Matthew Desmond, author of Evicted FINALIST FOR THE LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE • SHORTLISTED FOR THE J. ANTHONY LUKAS BOOK PRIZE • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR • The New York Public Library • Library Journal • Publishers Weekly • Kirkus Reviews The American criminal justice system is supposed to be a contest between two equal adversaries, the prosecution and the defense, with judges ensuring a fair fight. That image of the law does not match the reality in the courtroom, however. Much of the time, it is prosecutors more than judges who control the outcome of a case, from choosing the charge to setting bail to determining the plea bargain. They often decide who goes free and who goes to prison, even who lives and who dies. In Charged, Emily Bazelon reveals how this kind of unchecked power is the underreported cause of enormous injustice—and the missing piece in the mass incarceration puzzle. Charged follows the story of two young people caught up in the criminal justice system: Kevin, a twenty-year-old in Brooklyn who picked up his friend’s gun as the cops burst in and was charged with a serious violent felony, and Noura, a teenage girl in Memphis indicted for the murder of her mother. Bazelon tracks both cases—from arrest and charging to trial and sentencing—and, with her trademark blend of deeply reported narrative, legal analysis, and investigative journalism, illustrates just how criminal prosecutions can go wrong and, more important, why they don’t have to. Bazelon also details the second chances they prosecutors can extend, if they choose, to Kevin and Noura and so many others. She follows a wave of reform-minded D.A.s who have been elected in some of our biggest cities, as well as in rural areas in every region of the country, put in office to do nothing less than reinvent how their job is done. If they succeed, they can point the country toward a different and profoundly better future.