and the fight to redeem American justice
Review by
Matthew T. Mangino
Ben Spencer was convicted in 1987 of
the carjacking and murder of Jeffrey Young. “Bringing Ben Home: A murder, a
conviction, and the fight to redeem American justice,” is Ben’s compelling
journey through a “broken” criminal justice system, told by Barbara Bradley
Hagerty.
Hagerty was a correspondent for NPR
for 18 years. She received numerous
awards for her on air reporting and has met with success as a writer as well.
Bringing Ben Home was an ambitious
project and Hagerty pulled it off. She not only meticulously brought Ben
Spencer’s harrowing story to life; she was able analyze the growing problems in
the criminal justice system which makes justice for some out of reach.
Bradley examines the unlikely
phenomenon of people pleading guilty to crimes they did not commit. She
acknowledges that Spencer never confessed to the crime, but she deftly weaves
this important issue into her story.
A startling one in five innocent
people charged with murder confessed. Whether
it’s investigators lying to suspects about evidence—condoned by the U.S.
Supreme Court or its a prolonged interrogation of a juvenile or intellectually
disabled suspect—innocent people confess to crimes they did not commit.
After Spencer’s first trial his
conviction was overturned on appeal. Bradley examined a plea offer that was
made to Spencer of 20 years with the likelihood of being released in three
years. Spencer refused the offer “I didn’t
do anything” was his response.
Unfortunately, in today’s criminal
justice system, innocent people plead guilty all the time. Whether the risk of losing at trial is too
great because of the Defendant’s prior record—which enhances sentences, or the
so-called trial penalty which punishes people more harshly if they go to
trial—innocent people plead guilty to avoid trial.
The politics of criminal justice can
at times be shocking. Prosecutors who refuse to give up on obviously bad cases. In most states prosecutors are elected and
letting a “convicted killer” off doesn’t bode well on election day.
Bradley tells the story of Bill
Clinton, who as a candidate for President in 1992, returned to his native
Arkansas to oversee the execution of a mentally disabled black man.
Bradley examined how some staples of
forensic evidence like bite marks and microscopic hair evidence have been
debunked. For instance, Bradley pointed
out the FBI concluded that with regard to hair analysis “its experts had
provided scenically invalid testimony in 96 percent of cases.”
How do we now know that widely
accepted forensic analysis is now junk science? As Bradley put it, “The double
helix has sparked a revolution.”
DNA has exposed the errors of our
way. As Bradley suggested “DNA
jump-started the innocence revolution.” But, as with Ben Spencer, DNA is not
present in every case. However, as
Bradley’s story makes clear even in the cases without DNA, there are still
mistaken identifications, police misconduct and band forensics.
It is difficult to imagine that an
innocent man who spent 34 years in prison is lucky, but Ben Spencer was the
luckiest of the unlucky. Bradley examines in detail the group of advocates and
lawyers who took up Spencer’s cause and fought tirelessly for justice. Many men
and women sit in prison with no one to give them a voice, and opportunity for
vindication.
On top of that, even with a team
working on your behalf you need even more than luck. “[O]verturning a wrongful
conviction, even with DNA evidence, is extremely difficult . . . [without it]
it’s so much harder,” Rebecca Brown of the Innocent Project told Bradley. She goes on to say, “It comes down to,
really, serendipity. . . We should not be having to depend on luck.”
Bradley takes on the criminal
justice system -- whether its big pictures issues like flawed forensic
evidence, the trial penalty, habeas corpus or politics – or the private anguish
of a single person wrongfully convicted of a crime – Bradley paints a vivid and
troubling portrait of America’s criminal justice system.
(Matthew T. Mangino is of counsel with
Luxenberg, Garbett, Kelly & George P.C. His book The Executioner’s Toll, 2010
was released by McFarland Publishing. You can reach him at www.mattmangino.com and follow him on Twitter @MatthewTMangino)
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