The Crimes of Paris by Dorothy and Thomas Hoobler
Little, Brown and Company 2009
“Elle est partie!” cried Georges Benedicte, acting director of the Louvre. The Mona Lisa was gone. Stolen off the wall of the Louvre August 21, 1911. Undoubtedly the most recognized painting in the world, it was assumed that it would, in short order, be recovered. After all, the world’s greatest detective, Alphonse Bertillon was on the case.
Set during the Belle Epoque, the book describes the cultural and social zeitgeist of that time as well as policing and the still-used investigative techniques developed by Bertillon.
An engrossing read. Recommended.
Blind Justice by Mark Godsey
University of California Press 2019 254 pages
Surely there can be no greater torment than to be an innocent, wrongly accused, convicted and imprisoned for a crime. Sadly, this occurs with greater frequency than we care to consider. A former federal prosecutor in New York City, Mark Godsey experienced a Damascene moment when, upon accepting a post at Chase Law School, he agreed to help supervise students who were involved in the Kentucky Innocence Project. The bred-in-the bone belief common to prosecutors that everyone arrested by the police must be guilty, gave way to shock when the students, using DNA testing, proved the innocence of a man convicted of rape as a teenager. Moving to the University of Cincinnati College of Law, Mark Godsey started the Ohio Innocence Project in 2003. Mark Godsey explores and explains why such injustices happen: human failures predicated by human psychology. Police, prosecutors, some defense lawyers and some judges manipulate witnesses, “lose evidence,” refuse to provide information to which the accused are entitled and don’t investigate thoroughly. They engage in tunnel vision wherein the police and prosecutors develop a theory and, in pursuit of that theory, include evidence that fits and discards contrary evidence that ought to give pause to the prevailing thinking. A common belief that police and prosecutors hold that they intuitively know a “bad guy” when they see one, blinds them to innocence. Biases lead to injustices just as does the ambition to win for police officers and prosecutors professionally benefit from convictions. Citing many studies, Mark Godsey demonstrates how false memories are created by the police in witnesses. Lastly, a denial that they could be wrong — police, prosecutors, judges who entered the profession to do good — that they could have wrongfully convicted an innocent person, prevents many from entertaining the notion that they could have been mistaken.
With the killing of so many African Americans at the hands of the police and the troubling number of Canadians killed by the police, as well as regular headlines about wrongly convicted individuals being exonerated, North Americans have been shocked out of our unquestioning belief of justice in the system.
Well written incorporating credible research studies and moving stories of innocent people wrongly convicted, this book is an excellent motivator to improve the system to make it truly just. The only problem is that Innocence Projects, which are all woefully underfunded, require the help of lawyers so without that training, what does a concerned citizen do?
An excellent book, add this book to your library.
Blind Justice by Mark Godsey
University of California Press 2019 254 pages
Despite the stated belief that, “it’s better than 100 people go free than 1 innocent person go to prison”, every year in America, thousands of innocent people are imprisoned. It’s estimated that every year 10% of all convictions are wrong.
How is it, that in a “justice” system that subscribes to the ethos “innocent until proven guilty”, such injustice can repeatedly occur and on such a massive scale? In a well-organized, fascinating book, Godsey articulates six thought constructs in the legal system that result in miscarriages of justice. Godsey first discusses denial. Police and prosecutors perceive themselves — as do most people in society — as the “good guys”. Being a good guy means doing good things. Therefore, it’s extremely distressing to good people to admit they’ve convicted an innocent person. Such an admission creates cognitive dissonance (a psychological state wherein individuals are holding two contrary views such as a good person does bad things.)
Conducting an investigation that leads to a conviction and prosecuting a case (especially high profile cases) typically lead to promotions, higher status within their professions and higher pay. Ambition results in less than thorough investigations and the acceptance of evidence that refutes the prevailing crime theory. Combined with a bias against a suspected person or a bias in favour of the internalized crime theory and tunnel vision which prevents police and prosecutors from entertaining alternate theories or considering evidence that “doesn’t fit” their theory (in other words, that’s our theory and we’re sticking to it) and intuition that the person charged is a “bad guy” who “did it” (based on what police and prosecutors often wrongly believe to be guilty or innocent behaviours), innocent people are wrongfully charged, convicted and imprisoned. Last, a plethora of studies have demonstrated the inaccuracy of witnesses’ memories yet, these are relied upon in court. Additionally, Godsey writes, police are adept at planting false memories and leading witnesses to remember what the police need them to, always in pursuit of protecting society from the “bad guy” and in helping the families of the victims. Once the police and prosecutors have dehumanized the accused person as a “bad guy” it’s easy for them to engage in police and prosecutorial misconduct such as withholding evidence from the defence proving innocence, fabricating evidence and destroying evidence. Godsey even describes judicial misconduct such as the case when a judge presiding over a trial was instructing, through texts, the prosecutor in that very trial, strategies to win.
Citing case after case, Godsey acknowledges the many failings of the legal system of which he was once a part (a one time prosecutor who now heads the Ohio Innocence Project) as good people who commit “egregious acts of evil.”
A immensely troubling book for its informed assessment of systemic injustices at the heart of our legal system. The stories of the many wrongfully convicted individuals are both heartbreaking and beyond outrage. Such rage, though is fuel for activism.
A must read and a worthy addition to your library.
Reviewed April 30, 2019
Doing Justice by Preet Bharara
Alfred A. Knopf 2019 345 pages
Nicely complementing Blind Justice, Doing Justice describes how crimes are prosecuted with Bharara highlighting well-executed investigations and prosecutions employing cases to illustrate his observations. While Godsey focuses on the wrongs that occur (to lead to wrongful convictions), Bharara concentrates on the rights that occur.
An interesting book, well worth reading. To buy or not to buy…
Reviewed May 15, 2019
Punishment Without Crime by Alexandra Natapoff
Basic Books 2019 334 pages
Gobsmacked best reflects my reaction to this book for Natapoff’s description of the American legal system, particularly how the little-discussed misdemeanor system operates. Employing reliable and credible data, Natapoff enumerates not only the financial cost of becoming entangled in the misdemeanor system but the social costs encompassing employment, housing and social benefits.
Reading Punishment Without Crime, I experienced flashbacks of the 1970s TV show The Dukes of Hazard and its depiction of corruption.
Natapoff cites the number of misdemeanors in various states that can lead to arrest and a cascade of miseries. Some states arrest people for spitting on the sidewalk, some states for jaywalking, some for driving with a broken tail-light. Then there’s the frequent presence in a neighbourhood where it looks like you don’t belong (read a non-white individual in a nice area) even though you live in the neighbourhood or you’re visiting a romantic partner that does. For such infractions, a person is typically arrested and held in jail until Court. Court, notes Natapoff, may last two minutes during which time an individual charged with a misdemeanor, usually unschooled in the law, must plead guilty or innocent. The system is set up for individuals to plead guilty and pay their fines. Should individuals have the temerity to plead innocent they must await a trial. Typically with little financial resources, low wage earners are in quandary: await a trial to plead innocence and, unable to pay bail, stay in jail, or just plead guilty (even if innocent) and pay the fines, if there’s the money to do so. Some jurisdictions allow a month to pay before one is arrested and jailed.
For many people arrested for such infringements (ie. driving with a broken tail light), already financially constrained, spending a day or two or a week or a month in jail awaiting a trial is a risk to their employment not to mention physical and mental health. Not only must an arrested individual worry about paying a fine for the infraction but bail — often, if one is economically struggling — which is set quite high. Added to the original fine are several other fines. By the time an individual finally gets to Court, the original fine, which might have only equalled $200, now, with other extraneous fines, totals up to $1,000. Many individuals can’t afford a lawyer to navigate the system which is set up to move people through quickly.
Natapoff writes of many individuals who — tenuously employed hourly wage-earners and therefore, typically earning minimum wage or not much more — lose their jobs setting off a cascade of other losses such as homes and vehicles which individuals need to get to work. She writes of hundreds of individuals who have become homeless as a result of this system.
Obviously, if one has money, one can hire a lawyer to arrange bail so one can continue working. With a lawyer one can mount a defence during the trial. And if one can afford a lawyer, one can afford to pay the fines. For the vast majority of Americans caught in the misdemeanor system, they can afford neither thereby suffering greatly for it.
Shocking to this reviewer are two revelations: first, that some judges have no backgound in the law. In other words, they have no legal training whatsoever. Second, all the extra fines added to the original fine are fundraisers for the municipality. In fact, some judges’ salaries are paid from the fines they charge the transgressors which incentivizes police to arrest and charge people (for spitting on the sidewalk!) and incentivizes judges to keep finding, and fining people (to keep their pay cheques coming.)
Everyone should read this book.
Reviewed Dec. 22, 2019.
The Missing Millionaire by Katie Doubs McClelland & Stewart 2019 354 pages
Dec. 2, 1919 Ambrose J. Small, theatre impresario (owner of many theatres throughout Ontario), deposited a cheque for $ 1 million in the bank from the $ 1.75 million sale of his empire and then promptly disappeared, never to be found. Did he run away with his mistress Clara Smith? Was he kidnapped? Did he disappear? Was he murdered?
Gripping the imaginations of Torontians and the press, this real-life whodunit called for a high profile police investigation. Well-respected Detective Austin Mitchell of the Toronto Police was charged with the investigation and cleared Ambrose Small’s wife Theresa, heiress of the Kormann brewery, despite the odd fact that she didn’t report him missing for two weeks and despite her conflicting stories about her attempts to find him the night of his disappearance.
Adding to the mystery and theories about Ambrose’s disappearance was the disappearance shortly thereafter of Jack Doughty, Ambrose’s personal secretary at about the same as the disappearance of $105,000 in war bonds. With all of North America on alert, it wasn’t long before Doughty, aka Charles Benjamin Cooper, was spotted in Portland, Oregon and returned to Toronto by Austin Mitchell whereupon he was jailed for six years for the theft of the bonds.
The police investigation was closed without conclusions but, until their deaths, Gertrude and Florence Small, Ambrose’s sisters, with the support of former Alberta police officer and troublemaker Patrick Sullivan, publicly accused the widow Theresa of their brother’s death.
By 1936 the Ambrose Small case was an embarrassment prompting Ontario’s Attorney General to open an investigation. The OPP appointed Edward Hammond who completed a thorough investigation and issued a Report, officially naming suspects. I’ll leave it to you to decide…
An enjoyable read that creates a vivid picture of Toronto of the 1920s. Well-written and well-researched, it is well worth reading.
Reviewed January 5, 2020.
Bibliophilia 