|
| A Question of Evidence | | Date Created: Nov 09, 2005, 08:36 PM |
 This was a "bargain price" at B&N but it's only a couple years old and since I read just about anything on forensics and case studies of major crimes, I thought I'd read A Question of Evidence -- Fifteen Great Forensic Controversies by Colin Evans.
The reviews of it on Amazon.com are interesting too. It's not easy writing about high profile and emotion laden scientific subjects. It doesn't matter whether you're a writer like Evans or a professional in the field like Henry Lee or Michael Baden; it's still tough to make it readable, get it right, and deal with the opinion of who did it. The reader/reviewers either loved it or hated it.
I knew many of the 15 cases and Evans gets them right based on what I know. The Turin Shroud is a 14th century fake, Napoleon wasn't poisoned to death, Sam Sheppard and Jeffrey MacDonald are guilty, Lee Oswald acted alone, and OJ is guilty as hell. Interestingly, Evans rightfully damns lawyers like Barry Scheck and forensic experts like Henry Lee but gives Johnny Cochran a pass because he was just doing his job and getting even with all the blacks that were railroaded by white juries in the past. The title of the OJ chapter is called "When Money Met Science".
More worthwhile and absorbing to me were the cases I didn't know about lke the child murderer, Steven Truscott, and the murder of Rachel Nickell at Wimbleton Commons.
The Australian case of Lindy Chamberlain was also fascinating. Both the English and Australian cases were examples of out of control prosecution and the OJ case is the ultimate example of out of control defense. The history of some of the prominent names in forensics was also well worth the read.
So if you're into forensics and cases like this, I'm sure you'll enjoy this read although it's not in depth. It does have a good balance and keeps you interested.
|
|
|
|
|
|
