Justice
and Science
Price: $24.95
Subtitle: Trials and Triumphs of DNA Evidence
Author: George "Woody" Clarke
Foreword by
Janet Reno
Subject: Law
/ Science
Cloth ISBN 978-0-8135-4192-1
Pages: 256 pages
Publication Date: January 2008
View the
Table of Contents (.pdf)
Praise for Justice and Science
“From his work as
part of the prosecution in the 1995 O. J. Simpson murder trial to his
star billing on TV’s America’s Most Wanted, former San Diego
prosecutor George “Woody” Clarke has been party to some of the justice
system’s most visible, controversial, and melodramatic moments. He puts
that populist knack to work in this nonfiction page turner that should
appeal just as much to true crime buffs as those concerned with the
workings of the criminal justice system. . . . Full of suspenseful
true-crime accounts tracing the capture and conviction of murderers and
rapists, as well as the successful exoneration of the wrongly
convicted, this title has real best-seller potential.”–Publisher's
Weekly
(starred review)
“Woody Clarke has the ability to make difficult science that sometimes
confuses a jury understandable to his reader.”–Dominick Dunne
“From the beginning of its use in this country in the late 1980s,
Clarke helped pioneer the introduction of DNA test results in court.
Unlike many television programs, motion pictures and other books,
Justice and Science is a true account of how DNA evidence has changed
investigations.”–Janet Reno, from the forward
“Clarke's account of the rise of DNA evidence is engaging and well
paced, and the author comes across as likable and genuinely humble - a
rarity in a book of war stories.” -Michael O'Donnell, San Francisco Chronicle
Description:
George “Woody” Clarke has been renowned for years in legal
circles and among the news media because of his expertise in DNA
evidence. In this memoir, Clarke chronicles his experiences in some of
the most disturbing and
notorious sexual assault and murder court cases in California. He
charts the
beginnings of DNA testing in police investigations and the fight for
its
acceptance by courts and juries. He illustrates the power of science in
cases
he personally prosecuted or in which he assisted, including his work
with
the prosecution team in the trial of O.J. Simpson.
Although Clarke spent much of his career as a prosecutor, he
also covers cases where DNA evidence was used to exonerate. He directed
a special project, proactively examining over six hundred cases of
defendants convicted and sentenced to prison before 1993, with the goal
of finding instances in which DNA typing might add new evidence and
then offered testing to those inmates.
Databases of both convicted offenders and no-suspect cases
demonstrate the power of DNA testing to solve the unsolvable. As Clarke
tells the story of how he came to understand and use this new form of
evidence, readers will develop a new appreciation for the role of
science in the legal system.
About the Author:
George “Woody” Clarke served as a prosecutor in the
San Diego district attorney’s office from 1982 to 2003. He has appeared
frequently on national television, he has co-starred on America’s Most Wanted with host
John Walsh,
and he lectures internationally on forensic DNA evidence. For the past
three
years he has been a judge of the Superior Court in San Diego County.
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Price: $24.95
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