If nothing else Surviving Justice, a book about wrongful incarceration narrated almost entirely by formerly jailed exonerees, will make its readers exceedingly careful in accounting for their every whereabout and action. Because there is no telling, in the alternate and cruel universe of the conviction of the innocent by the American justice system, what might land you in prison. Clear suicides, airtight and documented alibis, even confessions to the crime by witnesses at the actual trial; none of these were enough to keep Surviving Justice's thirteen innocents out of jail. Imprisonment in this fantastic world is not justice, but the equivalent of being hit by a car: sudden, random, and with lifelong consequences. Horror stories, in other words; compelling, invasive, and at the same time, as they go back-to-back-to-back, deadening. Among the many tragedies detailed here, the book's failure to work as literature is the least pressing, but as reading, Surviving Justice is not recreational.
Still, the work is often stunning both in its absurdity and in its depiction of the destruction of innocent humans' lives. One exonoree, Gary Gauger, had the experience of being interrogated by police who were trying to convince him that he had killed his own family. Coerced into cooperating, Gauger tells of "sitting around trying to decide what my motive could have been and we couldn't come up with one. I mean, I loved my parents. There was no motive." Three years later, the courts agreed. Another man, John Stoll, had to watch a District Attorney march his son in and out of the courtroom until the boy stopped trying to hug him and instead began accusing him of child abuse and molestation. Kafkaesque is, for once, the most miserably appropriate word for the experiences depicted here. Beverly Monroe, wrongfully accused and imprisoned for the suicide of her boyfriend, says as much: "I don't know if everyone has read Kafka but they can look it up if they haven't because it's so important to know how these things feel to someone who's being falsely accused and put on trial."
The surrealism just deepens in prison. In the single most disturbing anecdote in a book that is a veritable anthology of them, Joseph Armine talks of the execution of one of his cellmates and friends; in order to distract the inmates while one of their own was killed, the guards screened an X-rated movie for the general population only minutes before the execution was scheduled. The palpable despair and disgust with which Armine recalls this event stands as a synecdoche for the dehumanization and capriciousness to which every inmate (innocent and guilty) was victim.
Though the horror is clear, Eggers and Vollen's goals are murky; my best guesses are empowerment (for those who get to finally tell their side of the story), and awareness (of those once and still wrongfully convicted, and of the system that put them there). Certainly anyone reading Surviving Justice will have a better "reality-based understanding of ongoing injustices in the United States and around the world" (as the Voice of Witness mission statement has it) after they are through.
Though the horror is clear, Eggers and Vollen's goals are murky; my best guesses are empowerment (for those who get to finally tell their side of the story), and awareness (of those once and still wrongfully convicted, and of the system that put them there). Certainly anyone reading Surviving Justice will have a better "reality-based understanding of ongoing injustices in the United States and around the world" (as the Voice of Witness mission statement has it) after they are through.
The book juxtaposes oral transcriptions with sidebars full of research and statistics that explain different elements of the flawed system: health care, suicides, interrogation techniques, and other topically related concerns are presented next to the first-person narrative in order to add an alternate academic and technical force.
Though I have no doubt the exonerees' transcripts are accurate, the editing is unfortunate. Each inmate's story is edited along pretty much the same plot arc, from non-sequiter arrest to absurd trial, miserable years behind bars, failed appeals, and finally exoneration and life after prison. By the end, the aggregate story is totally familiar and the individual details are mostly forgotten. This may have been the editors' intention, but it's not likely. The result gives the book a raw and primal force, but it's a force so savage you wish it more on the crooked cops and sleeping lawyers than on a sympathetic reader. For those us not filing legal briefs, making policy, or being educated in a classroom, the logic of getting to the end of Surviving Justice is surprisingly elusive: the call to action is loud, but word for word, it is at times unintelligible.
Though I have no doubt the exonerees' transcripts are accurate, the editing is unfortunate. Each inmate's story is edited along pretty much the same plot arc, from non-sequiter arrest to absurd trial, miserable years behind bars, failed appeals, and finally exoneration and life after prison. By the end, the aggregate story is totally familiar and the individual details are mostly forgotten. This may have been the editors' intention, but it's not likely. The result gives the book a raw and primal force, but it's a force so savage you wish it more on the crooked cops and sleeping lawyers than on a sympathetic reader. For those us not filing legal briefs, making policy, or being educated in a classroom, the logic of getting to the end of Surviving Justice is surprisingly elusive: the call to action is loud, but word for word, it is at times unintelligible.
