Excerpts from Chapter 5, The Prosecutor: According to the US Supreme Court, the prosecution is "the representative not of an ordinary party to a controversy, but of a sovereignty whose obligation to govern impartially is as compelling as its obligation to govern at all; and whose interest, therefore, in a criminal prosecution is not that it shall win a case, but that justice shall be done".
Few people are very good at admitting their mistakes; fewer still, when those mistakes are more serious. Meanwhile, the more entrenched one's position becomes, the less chance one has of beating an honest retreat. If the average American prosecutor enters the fray with prejudices firmly intact, what legal framework is in place to steer him or her in the direction of doing justice?
In this sense...this mind-set is far more dangerous than that of a venal man. The problem posed by corruption is recognized and everyone agrees that it should be rooted out; but the profound imbalance created by the hiring patterns and work environment of virtually every district attorney's office in America is not even acknowledged. So nobody is on the lookout for a cure.
A sensible legal system would be structured to identify prosecutorial misconduct, should it put an innocent person on death row. It would then provide a strong disincentive against this ever happening again. Sadly, that is not the system we have in place.
Again, this speaks to the justice system's priorities: our interest in securing convictions far outweighs our desire to ensure that we prosecute the correct person.
Paperback: This book traces the life and death sentence of Krishna Maharaj, a British businessman, born and raised in Trinidad, who was arrested, tried and convicted for committing a double murder that took place at the DuPont Plaza Hotel in downtown Miami very close to the noon hour on 16 October 1986. The victims were a Jamaican businessman, Krishna's ex-business partner, Derrick Moo Young, and his twenty-three-year-old son, Duane Moo Young.
A witness swore he saw him pull the trigger and a jury found him guilty, but to this day he swears he didn't do it.
Enter Clive Stafford Smith, a criminal defense attorney with a passion for lost causes. He calls up old police files, hunts down reluctant witnesses, and travels to the Bahamas in search of the real killer.
A superbly written page-turner, The Injustice System (2012) reveals through this one devastating case how so many innocent men are convicted of crimes they didn't commit and casts a much-needed spotlight on the seismic cracks in our justice system.
"It is an empowering read for anyone who cares about the human implementation of justice," reviewed Colin Firth.
The Injustice System is dedicated to Marita Maharaj, whose dedication to her husband, Krishna, through the quarter century of his incarceration is an inspiration to us all.
About the author: Clive Stafford Smith is the defense attorney who inspired John Grisham's The Chamber. More importantly, he is a legendary criminal defense lawyer who has spent twenty-five years representing poor defendants in high-profile cases across the South. He graduated from Columbia Law School in 1984, worked in Atlanta, and then moved to New Orleans, where he launched the Louisiana Crisis Assistance Center, a non-profit that offered free legal representation to poor people in death penalty cases.
A recipient of the Gandhi International Peace Award and a Lannan Cultural Freedom Award, his book The Eight O'Clock Ferry to the Windward Side (2007) (published in the UK as Bad Men) was a finalist for the George Orwell Prize, as was The Injustice System. Profiled by the BBC as "The Great Defender", he has appeared on numerous television and radio programs.
Clive Stafford Smith is also the founder and Director of Reprieve, which investigates, litigates and educates, working on the frontline, providing legal support to prisoners unable to pay for it themselves.
The problem with the book is that he is guilty as charged .... he ran, was caught and rightly found guilty. The Killer had friends in the UK to keep the story going!!!!
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