This is an interesting book on the Brady Rule. It covers the birth of the rule & how it was designed to ensure due process. With the Brady Rule, prosectors cannot suppress evidence from the defense. Unfortunately, the system does not always work in the best interest of the defendant. In the book, the author covers cases were the Brady Rule was used erroneous by prosectors. This book shedded some light on fraudulent practices that are used by defectives. It was eye-opening yet sad.

As a federal criminal litigator myself who has been on both sides of the courtroom and as someone who enjoys reading criminal and legal nonfiction in my free time as well, I was thrilled for the opportunity to read and review this. Thomas expertly pinpoints the failed promise of the Brady rule in only a way someone who has defended innocent people can. I’m definitely going to grab a physical copy of this one and recommend it to others in the field. Thank you to New Press, Thomas, and NetGalley for the e-ARC!

When Innocence is Not Enough tells the history of the Brady rule while zooming in on an egregious violation in the Catherine Fuller murder case and making the case for open file disclosure. I requested this ARC because with the recent Adnan Syed conviction reversal, I’ve become more interested in the wrongful conviction genre of true crime. Thomas L. Dybdahl goes through many case examples, with both positive and negative outcomes for the accused, showing that often the courts prioritize finality over justice. This book is a good jumping off point for those interested in wrongful convictions. I was googling names while reading to get more information about cases, entire books could probably be written about each of them. The author does a good job of balancing the devastating stories of wrongful conviction with ideas for how the justice system could be improved beyond Brady.

Thanks to the New Press and NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

When Innocence is Note Enough tells two narratives. It details the Catherine Fuller murder case in DC in the 1980s and how police were so committed to a narrative that they ignored evidence and convicted multiple innocent people. Simultaneously, the book walks through the creation of Brady and how courts have slowly limited its power, resulting in more wrongful convictions. Dybdahl shows that a few groups are trying to preserve Brady's power and reforms could succeed in ensuring justice is more fair.

The book was an enlightening read on Brady and its limits. The Catherine Fuller case did not focus on Brady until the end of the narrative, since the prosecution needed to withhold information first, but it works well as an informative narrative about how police and prosecutors can trap themselves into a story and ignore evidence leading them to the truth. I had never heard of the case (I now know that some people know it from The Confession Tapes on Netflix) but it was such a clear miscarriage of justice to try to rope so many young people into the criminal justice system with little evidence against any of them. The courts are so committed to uphold the institutions of the prosecutors office and the adversarial system that they are less concerned with innocent people crushed under their weight. While in some parts the book felt somewhat surface level, it covered a lot of history of criminal procedure concisely and gave clear avenues for further research and resources. But for someone wanting to get oriented in this area of the law or wanting to learn more about injustices in the criminal justice system, the book will be a good choice.

Absolutely fascinating. I really got a lot from this in depth investigation of a particular aspect of the legal system and what it says more generally about society. The original case which is covered in such depth in this book is deeply troubling and the author does a wonderful job of explaining it and bringing the context to bear.

Compelling Arguments Need Better Documentation. This is another of those nonfiction tales that uses a singular case as its overall narrative structure, but also looks to several other cases and events related to the overall thesis of the text. The overarching case is a brutal murder out of 1980s Washington DC where several black kids where wrongfully convicted of a murder they could not have committed, and where police and prosecutors withheld exculpatory evidence that resulted in these kids spending decades behind bars. Dybdahl then expands out to show that while this case was particularly egregious, it is also far from uncommon. Indeed, it is almost banal in just how common the abuses at hand truly are, causing one (later disgraced for unrelated reasons) judge to even call it an "epidemic" within the last decade prior to publication of this book!

The problems here are related yet distinct enough to my mind to warrant a two star deduction. The first star is lost due to the small bibliography, something that could potentially be corrected prior to actual publication of this book roughly three months after I sit to write this review of this advanced reader copy. Coming in at just about 15% of the overall text, this is short of the 20% - 33% that is more normal for works such as this one, and well short of the 40% - 50% that I *prefer* to see in such texts.

The second star is lost specifically because the claims herein are not as well documented as they need to be to make these points something that opponents cannot simply dismiss.

Make no mistake - I actually have been following this general issue (though not the specific cases at hand) for quite some time and nearly completely agree with the author's points and recommendations. But as the author points out often, there is quite considerable opposition to these ideas in the minds and actions of the very people who could most correct these injustices - and the only way to really be able to attempt to convince such opposition of our correctness is to more fully document our case. Thus, I always appreciate books such as this one - I simply need it to be much more documented. Still, for the ideas it presents and how it actually presents them, this is still a book that needs to be read by every American. Thus, it is very much recommended.