The Cadaver King and the Country Dentist

Starred review from December 18, 2017
Investigative reporter Balko and former criminal defense lawyer Carrington offer a clear and shocking portrait of the structural failings of the U.S. criminal justice system in this account of two medical professionals—Steven Hayne, Mississippi’s “former de facto medical examiner,” and his friend Michael West, a forensic dentist—who, in turn, built successful careers off of a broken system. The book focuses on the doctors’ roles in the trials of Kennedy Brewer and Levon Brooks, who were both wrongly convicted of crimes involving the sexual assault and murder of minors in the 1990s (both men were exonerated in 2007). The authors methodically dissect the doctors’ testimonies in the trials of the two men and point to major flaws; such as when, during Brooks’s trial, Hayne asserted that marks on the corpse were definitely human bite marks, despite the condition of the body, which had been submerged in water and was badly decomposed. The authors make clear that these two false convictions resulted from the willingness of Mississippi authorities to overlook legitimate questions about the quality of Hayne’s and West’s work; for example, Hayne, who performed 80% of the state’s autopsies for more than two decades, once wrote that he had removed the uterus and ovaries from a male cadaver. This eminently readable book builds a hard-to-ignore case for comprehensive criminal justice reform.

February 1, 2018

This book explores the truly dark side of criminal investigations. Washington Post journalist Balko (Rise of the Warrior Cop) and lawyer Carrington (law & director, George C. Cochran Innocence Project, Univ. of Mississippi Sch. of Law) provide a case study of the team of Dr. Steven Hayne, acting medical examiner, and Dr. Michael West, a dentist who specialized in "bite mark" analysis. Both worked in Mississippi and other parts of the South over a 20-year period. This story emerges from their roles as "experts" in two Mississippi murder cases in the 1990s. Both defendants were convicted of heinous murders, and both were ultimately exonerated. Details of these tragedies are conveyed in the context of issues such as collusion among various actors in the criminal justice system, junk science in the courtroom, and racial aspects of Southern justice. The chilling, fact-filled narrative also raises important questions about "privatization" of public offices and suggests needed reforms. Well-documented and accessible, with a definite point of view, this book complements other recent compilations of Innocence Project cases but is notable for its depth and geographic focus. VERDICT This stinging expose of faulty forensics is suited to the serious CSI enthusiast as well as students of criminal justice.--Antoinette Brinkman, formerly with Southwest Indiana Mental Health Ctr. Lib., Evansville

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from December 1, 2017
A journalist and criminal defense lawyer combine their knowledge about wrongful convictions in Mississippi to expose a corrupt system, with a keen focus on a lying medical examiner and a dentist who concocted phony evidence based on bite marks on the bodies of crime victims.The medical examiner is Steven Hayne; the dentist is Michael West. In the small world of detectives, lawyers, judges, and journalists trying to reduce the number of innocent citizens in prison, the perplexing rise to influence of co-conspirators Hayne and West is well-known, as is their eventual disgrace. But the saga has never been explored in such depth. Carrington devotes his life to freeing innocent inmates, serving as director of the Innocence Project at the University of Mississippi School of Law. Balko's (Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America's Police Forces, 2013) focus as a Washington Post opinion journalist and investigative reporter is more broad, but he has experience chronicling innocence cases. Although the authors have reported on many wrongful convictions, the book focuses heavily on two murder cases, both involving innocent men: Levon Brooks and Kennedy Brewer, both of whom were exonerated after years in prison. Their expose of systemic injustice across Mississippi goes beyond Hayne and West to name prosecutors, judges, legislators, and others who catered to them. Why cater to two such craven incompetents? Because those inside the criminal justice system were more interested in closing cases (usually with black defendants) than in identifying the actual perpetrators. Detectives, prosecutors, and judges intent on getting cases off the docket knew they could rely on Hayne and West to testify dishonestly under oath. The authors explain the motivations of Hayne and West: zealotry on the side of law enforcement, money for accepting a huge volume of cases to lie about in court under oath, and perhaps racism. A horrifying expose of how a few individuals can infect an entire state's criminal justice system.

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January 1, 2018
It is relatively easy to convict an innocent person, writes John Grisham in his foreword to this searing investigation into a system that results in too many wrongful convictions. Balko, an opinion blogger for the Washington Post, and Carrington, a criminal defense lawyer and director of the George C. Cochran Innocence Project at the University of Mississippi School of Law, have spent years examining the flaws in the Mississippi justice system, a system that has casually meted out sentences based on faulty evidence and a rush to justice. Behind much of the injustice were two almost grotesquely southern gothic figures: an inept medical examiner who rushed through autopsies and a small-town dentist called in to testify in numerous criminal trials, using junk science like the now-discredited bite-mark analysis. The book focuses on two men wrongfully convicted of the murders of two three-year-old girls in 1990 and 1992. Through the intensive scrutiny of how the men were speedily tried, convicted, and then released after years in prison, the authors uncover an unholy alliance of racist cops and prosecutors with questionable death investigations and misapplied forensics. This work should spark both admiration and outrageand, one hopes, reform.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)