We all put our faith in the criminal justice system. We trust the professionals: the police, the lawyers, the judges, the expert witnesses. But what happens when the process lets us down and the wrong person ends up in jail?
Henry Keogh spent almost twenty years locked away for a murder that never even happened. Khalid Baker was imprisoned for the death of a man his best friend has openly admitted to causing. And the exposure of 'Lawyer X' Nicola Gobbo's double-dealing could lead to some of Australia's most notorious convictions being overturned.
Dr Xanthe Mallett is a forensic anthropologist who has written a number of books on the subject of crime.
This time, the theme is what happens when forensic scientists and other experts get it wrong, so that innocent people are convicted, often spending years in prison before being freed when the error is picked up - if it ever is.
If you are Australian, you will certainly have heard of one case not covered in this book, but which is a good example: Lindy Chamberlain. She was the woman whose baby was carried off by a dingo while the family was camping. The forensics team found her guilty of killing her own child in the car. That area of forensics was not very good at the time and they came to the wrong conclusion. It was several years before the baby’s matinee jacket was found and she was exonerated.
The cases covered in this book make me wonder if we can rely on those who are supposed to work out what happened using science. I have, in fact, recently read an article that says there is now an argument going on among forensic specialists about whether “shaken baby syndrome” is a thing. Forensics will hopefully improve, but the cases in this book were mishandled because the experts stuffed up. If you are a jury member and an expert witness gets up to explain why the defendant is guilty, you think, well, he knows what he is talking about...
The final chapter of the book deals not with a victim of miscarriage of justice but with someone who has been responsible for many herself.
For many years Nicola Gobbo, known as Lawyer X, was both representing some of the most notorious members of Melbourne’s crime community, during the gangland wars, and using what she had learned to inform against them. Not only that but she also used information from the police taskforce to help her clients.
“Conflict of interest” is a major understatement!
As a result of all this coming to light, hundreds of convicted people will have the opportunity to claim miscarriage of justice and some will be released.
What a mess!
Dr Mallett concludes that on the whole the system works, despite all the cases covered in the book, but urges any readers who might find themselves on a jury not to be blinded by science or powerful expert testimony, which can, after all, go horribly wrong, and has.
Each chapter has a useful section in which an expert in that area explains how it works.
A fascinating true crime book that shows the other side of crime - when convictions go wrong. Highly recommended.
You can buy this book on all the usual websites, including Amazon, Booktopia and Book Depository. It’s available both in print and ebook, both Kindle and ePub.
7 comments:
The inevitability of wrongful convictions (for whatever reason) is the best argument there is for abolishing the death penalty. Years in prison can be somewhat inadequately compensated for by a financial damages settlement, but there's no coming back from execution.
I assume Australia, like Canada, no longer has the death penalty. At least, I hope so.
Hi Debra! Indeed, you can’t bring back anyone from death. And innocent people have been killed by the law in Australia, including a man called Colin Ross, who was wrongly executed for rape and murder in the early 20th century.
The last person to be hanged here was Ronald Ryan, in 1967. The whole thing was a mess, including forensically. Even the jury that condemned him were shocked. No one had been executed since 1951, the sentences were usually commuted to life. Many people around the country protested, right up till the last day. But Premier Henry Bolte, who had an election coming up, and who had been stopped from ordering a previous execution, decided to show who was boss and get votes at the same time.
If interested check out Wikipedia here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Ryan
I have a chapter about him in my children’s book Crime Time: Australians Behaving Badly. You might Find it hard to get in print outside of Australia, but the ebook is available still. Oddly, you can get it on the Baen Books Web site, among others!
So yes, We long ago scrapped the death penalty, because of this case.
Oh, this does sound interesting. Although I am not sure I want to read more about Lawyer X right at this moment.
HÍ Aníta! There are á löt of details Í didn’t know about in this book, though Í do agree that we have heard á lot. It’s a good book.
Absolutely. And there's another ethical issue: even if the person is guilty, you're giving the condemned man an infinite sentence for a finite crime.
Life imprisonment doesn’t usually mean life, Guillaume. I can only think of one person here who is still in jail and committed his crime in the 1960s, a truly horrible child murder. It’s something called “the Governor‘s pleasure” which means “he might get out if we think it’s safe to do it.” So far, it hasn’t been considered safe.
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