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Jessica S. Henry

Smoke but No Fire: Convicting the Innocent of Crimes that Never Happened

Smoke but No Fire: Convicting the Innocent of Crimes that Never Happened

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  • More about Smoke but No Fire: Convicting the Innocent of Crimes that Never Happened

Smoke but No Fire is a book that explores the shocking and all-too-common type of wrongful conviction, where innocent people are locked away for crimes that never actually happened. It reveals the heartbreaking stories of innocent people convicted of crimes that never occurred, such as a suicide being mislabeled a homicide, an accidental fire being mislabeled an arson, corrupt police planting drugs on an innocent suspect, and a false allegation of assault being invented to resolve a custody dispute. The book sheds essential light on a deeply flawed criminal justice system that allows these convictions to occur regularly, and promises to be eye-opening reading for legal professionals, students, activists, and the general public.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 264 pages
Publication date: 05 October 2021
Publisher: University of California Press



2020 Foreword


INDIES Book of the Year Awards Winner, Silver


(Political and Social Sciences)


Winner of the Montaigne Medal, awarded to the most thought-provoking books



The first book to explore a shocking yet all-too-common type of wrongful conviction—one that locks away innocent people for crimes that never actually happened.




Rodricus Crawford




was convicted and sentenced to die for the murder by suffocation of his beautiful baby boy.




After years on death row, evidence confirmed what Crawford had claimed all along: he was innocent, and his son had died from an undiagnosed illness.




Crawford is not alone.




A full one-third of all known exonerations stem from no-crime wrongful convictions.



The first book to explore this common but previously undocumented type of wrongful conviction, Smoke but No Fire




tells the heartbreaking stories of innocent people convicted of crimes that simply never happened.




A suicide is mislabeled a homicide.


An accidental fire is mislabeled an arson.


Corrupt police plant drugs on an innocent suspect.


A false allegation of assault is invented to resolve a custody dispute.


With this book, former New York City public defender Jessica S. Henry sheds essential light on a deeply flawed criminal justice system that allows—even encourages—these convictions to regularly occur.




Smoke but No Fire




promises to be eye-opening reading for legal professionals, students, activists, and the general public alike as it grapples with the chilling reality that far too many innocent people spend real years behind bars for fictional crimes.

Weight: 350g
Dimension: 146 x 221 x 16 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780520385801

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