Reasonable Doubt
Dr Xanthe Mallett
“We all put our faith in the criminal justice system. We trust the professionals: the police, the lawyers, the judges, the expert witnesses. But what happens when the process lets us down and the wrong person ends up in jail? … Exposing false confessions, polices biases, misplaced evidence and dodgy science, Reasonable Doubt is an expert’s account of the murky underbelly of our justice system – and the way it affects us all.”
This book was both interesting and problematic. I wasn’t really sure what to do with the information I learnt beyond that forensic science is really cool! once again, I loved the blood splatter analysis. It reminded me fondly of a blood spatter book I read over 5 years ago.
However, the take homes from these stories are that some of the time (or even most of the time!) DNA or other forensic evidence can be interpretted incorrectly or even damaged during analysis. Something that may seem to put someone safely in jail with irrevoccable guilt, can possibly implicate them when they aren’t actually guilty.
Many of these cases come about where people ignored the evidence at hand. Or, they actually got a confession from someone for doing the murder, but then ignore that to put the person they ‘suspect’ in jail. You’d hope that these days people would be trained better to see how these biases arise, but half the time the expert seems to not be the expert. It’s thought-provoking, but also frustrating.
The acknowledgements bring up some questions about the lawyer cracked up on cocaine being the author’s friend! I read both of Tim Winton-Munro‘s non-fiction works, and while I thougth the first was good, the second was average. Is it just the time when people of that age start writing non-fiction about their lives? What determines who gets a publishing contract. But I digress…
Something cool that I did learn was that people are really bad at recognising people of other ethnic backgrounds. This could otherwise be known as “White people are unconcious assholes”. If you have a witness to a crime and give them a picture of other witnesses they will randomly select someone who looks familiar – regardless of whether they were another bystander or actually the suspect.
There’s lots of dodgy stories where people in positions of authority do idiotic things. I could say everyone should read this book to know what NOT to do if they are ever suspected of homicide. This book needs a tl:dr, since smart people might read the whole thing but it’s not necessarily the smart people that are the problem.
The takeaways I got was that even if you know you are innocent don’t tell them anything! Police will absolutely lie to your face if it gets them the outcome they want. I’m not sure that’s a good thing. Let’s just hope that I never end up on the scene of a crime – but then as a Caucasian, blonde hair, blue-eyed slimly built female, I’m probably not going to be a suspect.
Pan Macmillan | 28th July 2020| AU$32.99 | paperback
I fully admit that I don’t follow politics and I specifically ignore the news because I find it quite depressing and frustrating. Thus, although I was aware of the ‘Greta phenomenon’ happening, I wasn’t really aware of the specific circumstances about it. This book won’t give you those either. What it will provide you with is a thoughtful commentary by Greta’s mother on some of the challenges of raising a neurodiverse child.
An Interview with Leslie I. Landis
Where/when do you best like to write?
Conversation with Naiche
Felicia: In my defense, that’s my job. Moving right along, let’s talk about Spooky Action, where we find that after helping the UDC win the war, you’re going to have a fabulous adventure in deep space. It involves the coolest ship the UDC has ever designed. It’s fast, sleek, and the navigation control actually links directly into the pilot’s brain. Since you’re one of the best pilots in the Corps, I know you’re just itching to get your hands on a ship like that – aren’t you?
I wanted this to be new and innovative, but in the end I actually felt disappointed. I’ve read a similar novel/memoir in the past that still stuck with me. What really frustrated me about this was that it had a ‘fearless new talent’ but the writing itself wasn’t that amazing. It seemed to reply on shock factor, and speed, in order to keep the reader interested.
This is a rich novel that is intended to be confronting and powerful, but is instead I found it off putting. It seemed like a train wreck from the start, and yet I kept hoping for a satisfactory conclusion. Instead what I read made me feel irritated and grossed out. Also there were parts (such as Marco’s ?affair? with the butcher) that I didn’t understand the importance of. This is literature, not light reading. It demands attention and thinking that I just didn’t have the space to give.
The Optimist is a play. So why did it become an audio book? Two reasons. The first has to do with my education after I became a history professor. With a mother and uncle both fired from their jobs for being Communists, I’d already had a first-hand education in how the world works. Although I didn’t admit it to myself at the time, perhaps I wanted to hide in the educational ivory tower, away from the unpredictable real world. I really, really got that wrong.
The Optimist becoming an audio book is the logical end of this story. Since this is most assuredly one of those times when truth is stranger than fiction, doing a factual article for some magazine or journal looked like a sure way to pile up rejection notices. Actually one playhouse turned down The Optimist because an artistic director thought the Henry VIII/Anne Boleyn reappearance was unbelievable. With the help of the professional, talented actors who portray these people, my hope is listeners will find The Optimist both convincing and enjoyable.
This memoir almost moved me to tears with the hopelessness and frustration that leaked out of its pages. How could no-one help Lucia when she was obviously in so much pain? Surely bleeding from the vagina should always be treated as serious. I guess that this was some years ago, when endometriosis and Crohn’s Disease were poorly understood, and even more poorly treated.
This book left me with an incredibly bad mouth feel. I felt violated and unsatisfied, and frankly a bit offended! This is a vague retelling of Macbeth, but Macbeth was time-appropriate, and Shakespeare! Death and madness are no longer ‘normal’ (and therapy will help with avoiding both of those things).