Three False Convictions, Many Lessons: The Psychopathology of Unjust Prosecutions by David C. Anderson and Nigel P. Scott

Another book review I wrote for the Conference issue of Liberator (Liberator 425), which you can download free of charge from the magazine's website.

Three False Convictions, Many Lessons: The Psychopathology of Unjust Prosecutions

David C. Anderson and Nigel P. Scott

Waterside Press, £22.50

The possibility of false conviction is routinely deployed as an argument against the death penalty, but otherwise does not concern us as much as it should. Anderson and Scott look at three high-profile cases, those of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito (Italy), Stefan Kiszko (UK) and Darlie Routier (USA), and trace the factors they have in common.

The authors emphasise the roles of psychopathology, confirmation bias, false confessions, the media and the internet as causes of unjust accusations. Putting a lack of empathy among police officers, prosecutors and others to the fore, it considers a wide range of other psychopathological aspects of miscarriages of justice.

They write: “The law is too important to be left to lawyers, judges, Prosecutors and police if we are not ultimately to sink to the levels described by Franz Kafka in the trial there the victim Joseph K discovers at first hand just what can happen when lawyers decide that their role is to earn a living at the expense of the accused and where things cannot be questioned.”

Darlie Routier is still on Death Row in Texas despite overwhelming evidence that her conviction for killing her own child is false, whilst Knox, Sollecito and Kiszko have been vindicated by the highest judicial authorities and telling evidence. The authors show how and why unfounded rumours still persist in the case of Knox and Sollecito and advances the theory that the Routier killings were the work of a notorious serial killer.

Jonathan Calder