Book Review: Henry, J.S., Smoke but No Fire: Convicting the Innocent of Crimes that Never Happened. University of California Press. 2020

Abstract

There are myriad reasons why innocent people become the target of an investigation then charged and convicted of a crime, and ultimately sentenced to prison. Instances such as these stem from factors that include witness misidentifications, forensic errors, mislabeling of natural and accidental events like crimes, official misconduct resulting in false confessions, and innocents’ acceptance of plea-bargaining deals to circumvent the possibility of a much harsher prison sentence if convicted in a trial setting (Alschuler, 2015; Reichart, 2016; Shaw & Porter, 2015). These reasons are but a few of the mitigating factors that serve to convict the innocent or may even encourage them into accepting the blame for crimes that they did not commit; and at times, being charged with or accepting responsibility for crimes that never existed in the first place (Henry, 2020). In her book, Smoke but No Fire: Convicting the Innocent of Crimes that Never Happened, Jessica S. Henry expounds upon