Description: This volume brings together leading experts on the investigation, litigation and scholarly analysis of innocence cases in America, from legal, political and ethical perspectives. The contributors consider the challenges faced by the exoneration movement, causes of wrongful convictions, problems associated with investigating, proving, and defining 'innocence', and theories of reform. These issues are investigated from a multi-disciplinary perspective and with the aim of improving the American criminal justice system when it is faced with its most harrowing sight: an innocent defendant.
Review Quotes: 'Professor Cooper and her colleagues have assembled America's Hall of Fame of advocates for identifying the causes of wrongful convictions. Now judges, defense lawyers and - most of all - prosecutors can find in one place the roadmap that might help us more unerringly to convict the guilty and to free the innocent from our prisons. To whatever extent we advance this goal, we will all owe a great debt of gratitude to the authors of this fine book.' Larry A. Hammond, Osborn Maledon, USA 'These fine writers - scholars, experts, and advocates - provide a rich interdisciplinary analysis of the "innocence movement" and the fundamental ways it has changed and will continue to transform the American criminal justice system. Anyone who cares about miscarriages of justice and thinks critically about the system as a whole will find this collection to be a provocative, insightful, and valuable resource.' Peter J. Neufeld and Barry C. Scheck, the Innocence Project, USA 'With contributions from many of the nation's leading scholars on wrongful convictions, Controversies in Innocence Cases in America is a thoughtful and wide-ranging treatment of the topic and a major addition to the academic literature. Well-done!' Daniel S. Medwed, Northeastern University School of Law, USA 'An excellent anthology which focuses on all the major problems associated with wrongful conviction. The authors are well qualified in the subject they write about - the book's organization is clear and its findings convincing. We need more books like this in the future in order to bring to light the many mistakes that are made in determining guilt in our criminal justice system.' Mark Pogrebin, University of Colorado Denver, USA '...a nice addition to the scholarly literature, with offerings from some of the finest academics in the field... does what any good edited collection should do - and more. It adds to the scholarly conversation in the field; contains chapters that differ with