Life and Death in the Courtrooms of America

Injustice

A man wrongly convicted of murder, a crusading lawyer determined to overturn the death penalty and an investigation that reveals corruption at every turn. This remarkable book reads like a page-turning detective story, with one crucial difference: can we be sure that justice will be served?

True stories of wrongful convictions are by their nature utterly compelling. In Injustice, Clive Stafford Smith details a spectacular example of a bogus conviction, and the many lives ruined by it...A superbly written account of only one case, but one of thousands.

Clive Stafford Smith is an extraordinary lawyer, but he is also a great storyteller and his account of the Kris Maharaj death row case is a powerful thriller, beautifully told.

Stafford Smith is a true hero and this book helps explain why.

If you believe in the death penalty, read this book. It will change your mind and change your life. A book that zaps through you at 2,000 volts – just like the current used to execute a man in the electric chair.

An empowering read for anyone who cares about the humane implementation of justice - no matter where it is.

A terrific read. Stranger than any fiction and much more exciting than Miami Vice.

Impressive and moving… Until you know how the trial went wrong, how the death penalty is actually carried out, how redress is remote, it is impossible to make a difference. But we can, and we must. Inaction by any one of us is the handmaiden of injustice.

When you need to inspire yourself for the return to work

A forensic examination of the murder trial in America of British businessman Kris Mahraj

Clive Stafford Smith is a lawyer specialising in defending those accused of the most serious crimes, and is founder and Director of UK legal charity Reprieve. Based in the US for twenty-six years, he now works from the UK where he continues to defend prisoners on Death Row, and challenges the continued incarceration of those held in secret prisons around the world. He has secured the release of 65 prisoners from Guantánamo Bay and still acts for fifteen more. His book Bad Men (shortlisted for the 2008 Orwell Prize) described this campaign. Alongside many other awards, in 2000 he received an OBE for 'humanitarian services'.

Shortlisted for the 2013 Orwell Prize. 
THE STORY CONTINUES: TWO NEW CHAPTERS FOR THE PAPERBACK EDITION 
 
In 1986, Kris Maharaj, a British businessman living in Miami, was arrested for the brutal murder of two ex-business associates. His lawyer did not present a strong alibi; Kris was found guilty and sentenced to death in the electric chair. 
 
It wasn't until a young lawyer working for nothing, Clive Stafford Smith, took on his case that strong evidence began to emerge that the state of Florida had got the wrong man on Death Row. So far, so good - except that, as Stafford Smith argues here so compellingly, the American justice system is actually designed to ignore innocence. Twenty-six years later, Maharaj is still in jail. 
 
Step by step, Stafford Smith untangles the Maharaj case and the system that makes disasters like this inevitable. His conclusions will act as a wake-up call for those who condone legislation which threatens basic human rights and, at the same time, the personal story he tells demonstrates that determination can challenge the institutions that surreptitiously threaten our freedom.

Clive Stafford Smith

[A] vivid, inquiring memoir... In unpicking this history within himself, in what is a properly soul-searching book, Stafford Smith finds useful ways to ask the hardest of questions about crime and punishment

Trials of My Father

'[A] vivid, inquiring memoir... A properly soul-searching book' Observer 
 
The powerful and emotive memoir about one man’s relationship with his father and the stigma around mental illness, from the acclaimed author and human rights lawyer Clive Stafford Smith. 
 
A leading campaigner for justice, human rights lawyer Clive Stafford Smith has spent a lifetime getting to know his clients – from detainees in Guantánamo Bay to prisoners facing execution on Death Row – and finding out 'what makes them tick'. 
 
Yet closer to home, there was a man whose mind has always remained off limits: his own father. 
 
But when Clive inherited more than 3,000 of his letters, he could finally start to piece together the obsessive personality behind them. 
 
Drawing on the life of a client with his own mental health issues, The Far Side of the Moon is an unforgettable memoir and a meticulous critique of our social and justice systems.Just how much has Clive's father's unspoken struggle shaped his own life? 
 
PRAISE FOR CLIVE STAFFORD SMITH 
 
‘Superbly written’ John Grisham on Injustice 
 
‘Remarkable’ Observer 
 
‘An empowering read for anyone who cares about the human implementation of justice’ Colin Firth on Injustice

Clive Stafford Smith

Books by Clive Stafford Smith

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