Making a Case for Innocence: True Stories of a Criminal Defense Investigator
Various stories from the author’s long distinguished career as—like it says in the title—a criminal defense investigator, the PI who looks for ways in which to exonerate a defendant. Most of the remembrances are about miscarriages of justice, and are not easy to read. Some absolve a false suspect before anything happens to them, which is always a reason to cheer, but there aren’t enough of those.
The writing is well-done, familiar but not overly jocular. Parts of the author’s personal life make it in here, the most interesting being that she wanted to be a singer-songwriter before she fell into this line of work. That humanizes her, as well as the stories, and is a good touch.
My only negative is I would have preferred the ending to not be so depressing, downright discouraging. I know what the author is trying to do, but can’t help but wish she’d finished it on a more positive note.
3.5 pushed up to 4/5

I received an electronic copy of this interesting collection of investigations of Ms. Higuera as a criminal defense investigator from Netgalley, April Higuera, and JKS Communications in exchange for an honest review. Thank you all for sharing your hard work with me.

This whole viewpoint - that of an investigator working for the defense - is one I had not really considered before. We all know the police as well as the DA'S office and Duckie and CCH Pounder do their thing. All are involved in investigations for the prosecution. Television keeps us current on the pertinent talents of that side of things. April Higuera explains well how she got involved in this work for the defense, and we follow several of the cases she covered over time. I found this simply told, easy to understand and profoundly important in the scheme of things. Let's hear it for innocence.

Although the stories themselves have the potential to be interesting, the writing is poor, and more like a poorly told story than a well-written memoir.

I hadn't really considered that the defence team in a criminal case need investigators, but having read books about police corruption, incompetent lawyers and miscarriages of justice, it kind of makes sense. Ms Higuera is such an investigator and this book is her description of why it is vital to employ someone like her. Could be an obvious sales pitch - here's why you need to hire me. But it is so much more than that. Ms Higuera is a compassionate and dedicated professional and her stories are shocking. As a Brit reading it, I was very glad we don't have the death penalty. It is easy to see, reading this, how people are railroaded and convicted without a fair hearing by an overworked system with no money and harassed defence lawyers. Some defence lawyers appointed by the court are trying their first capital case with no external support. One particular case the author focusses on is about a friend of her mother's convicted of killing her husband. 73 year old Hope Schreiner was found guilty and spent years in jail while the author investigated the case and tried with new lawyers to get a new hearing. Eventually Mrs Schreiner was released to a care home but had lost everything including all her savings as she could not profit from her crime.

149 people were exonerated in the US in 2015 - serving an average of 14.5 years - and these people were innocent. Who knows how many more never get released? People like Ms Higuera are necessary to ensure due process and a tough scrutiny of bad trials. This book is recommended if you read true crime or like an inside track on the American justice system.

I was given copy of this book by Netgalley in return for an honest review.

This is a must read! Helps you learn about the nuances of the system. Just an eye-opening book that I could not put down!

An excellent insight into the dark side. The author makes considerable pains throughout the book to emphasise how the police are biased and corrupt, and that she is battling on the right of innocent victims suffering miscarriages of justice. But she also states she is only searching for evidence of innocence. What about all those people when helped to get off due to technicalities, not innocence, that also plague the US justice system. I suppose she needs some way to justify to herself how she sleeps at night.

I have always been interested in the judicial system. Do we have a fair system? If someone has definitely committed a crime then how can we be sure that the person will continue to have the rights that we all have; namely, the right to full counsel and a fair trial. We hear so much from the Crown's side but rarely from the defense side. "Making a Case for Innocence: True Stories of a Criminal Defense Investigator" by April Higuera gives us an insider's look at the defense or as the author wrote, "the dark side" as some people say.
April Higuera is in a unique position to think about the court process as she is often hired by the defense to find evidence that will contradict, poke holes or give an alternative to the Crown's case. That isn't to say she agrees with someone who seems to have committed a crime but rather that sometimes evidence is held back, people have tunnel vision, and occasionally people have a time limit and an agenda to close a case quickly. Her point is that the courts cannot be completely fail-safe or impartial when you have human beings involved. We need people like her helping with these cases.
I found her book to be an eye opener and really something to think about. There have been so many cases where someone has been found innocent by the use of DNA and others who have been scapegoats for corrupt officials. April does make some very good suggestions and I believe that as she says, "everyone has the right to a fair and impartial trial no matter where the truth leads". I am glad she is investigating because the system that we do have is not perfect by any means and it does seem to work more on the side of "righteousness" rather than relying on pure truth. She seems to have the correct view that it is very important to tell the truth no matter what. I am hoping that Ms. Higuera continues to write books about this issue. This book was very well written in such a way that anyone can read it. It is a must read for those interested in true crime.
I received a copy of this book from JKS Communications via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Interesting take from someone with a different outlook on the many people incarcerated because of lack of money, time the police and public defenders have.

Making a Case for Innocence by April Higuera

Firstly I should state that I was aware of the role of the Criminal Defense Investigator but only as the sidekick to the brilliant defense lawyer who instructs him/her to ‘track down’ witness/evidence/paperwork or whatever. It never occurred to me that it is a specialist role not only for pre-trial investigation but also post-conviction investigation that requires dedication, deduction, patience and perhaps brilliance. So if Ms Higuera wanted to highlight this specialist area of defense law then she has certainly done that and I thank her for pointing me in the right direction should I ever fall foul of the law.

We have all witnessed through the media and books and films miscarriages of justice; we have all been appalled to think that somebody got away with murder, literally; and we have all pondered on the impossible task of proving a negative, fine if you have an alibi or witness – but what if you were alone at the relevant time? How can I prove that I was not there? That is bad enough, but what if the very agencies that are set up to protect us are more interested in ‘solving’ a crime than investigating and testing the evidence and proving without a doubt?

I take it all on board – particularly the advice that if you are a witness to a crime you may well be in shock and not in the best position to make your statement to the police and legally you do not have to at that time. This never occurred to me. Good advice.

Ms Higuera recounts varies cases in which she was involved and indeed helped clear convicted criminals and it is all fascinating. Where it falls down for me is that I could not get enthused about it; something seemed lacking. Yes, what she recounts is shocking, appalling, but something in her style of writing did not engender outrage or even tension. The narration felt like a lecture, perhaps even bordering on dull; case studies were repeated, and not always presented in a logical way (in my opinion). The style seemed somewhat pedantic and what should have been an impassioned plea for justice struck me more like an advertisement for the services of a Criminal Defense Investigator.

Is it worth a read, undoubtedly? It is certainly interesting but it is not an exciting page-turner.

Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for providing an ARC via my Kindle in return for an honest review.

Thank you Netgalley for giving me the opportunity to read and review this title. I'm always attracted to the stories of innocent people who've been wrongfully accused and inprisoned for crimes they did not commit and those who help them fight to clear their name. "Making a Case for Innocence" was attractive to me for that reason. Unfortunately, I believe that the author was less interested in telling the accused stories and more interested in telling her own. Each chapter is devoted to a different case and yet I felt like I was not getting progressively more information about the mechanisms of the criminal justice system but more information about Higuera's life. While I knew there would be a relative amount of information about the author I did not expect for her personal life to be the main focus. The author seems to have a problem with different "cultures." She continually refers to her own whiteness and the color of other people throughout the stories.

I so badly want to give this book a glowing, 5-star review. Books like this one are a vital part of provoking thought, initiating conversation, and, with some luck, creating change within our judicial system. But I have to be honest and say this book just didn't grab me the way it could have.

I'll start with the good stuff. The author's personal experience gives readers an inside look at the truth of our so-called justice system. April Higuera didn't begin her career with an agenda. If anything, she admits to an initial bias in favor of the workings of our legal system. Her career path became a revelation for her, and with this book she shares her awakening to the ambiguities of truth and law, guilt and innocence. Her stories bring us inside the complex and often skewed world of criminal justice, providing a view most of us would otherwise never see.

Now the not-so-good stuff, from my perspective. The writing is much more tell than show. Despite content that should have yanked my emotions, I didn't feel a whole lot of anything. The author tells us about her outrage. Many times she tells us that she feels empathy for clients and victims. But I didn't experience any of those emotions within her storytelling. I've read books of this nature that made me physically ache. I wanted that with this book.

The other problem I had was that the content often became repetitive. The author reiterates facts previously stated and repeats details from cases already discussed. This takes away from the straight forward flow of the storytelling, and is mostly unnecessary.

While I can't say this is one of the best books I've read on this topic, it is certainly worth reading. And if you've yet to delve into the truth behind our (in)justice system, this book is a great place to start.

.MAKING A CASE FOR INNOCENCE BY APRIL HIGUERA

These are all compelling cases and TRUE STORIES of a Criminal Defence Investigator!
The Author April Higuera in an easy to understand and conversationalist writing style educates the
reader why it is absolutely imperative to have a Criminal Defense Investigator on your legal team if
you are convicted of a crime.

The Prosecutor or District Attorney's office usually have at their disposal numerous investigators besides the police when prosecuting a crime. She has cited numerous cases where she has been the
investigator for the defense and has asked questions of expert witnesses refuting the prosecutor's findings. In most cases the prosecutor's do not look for other perpetrators or anybody else that could be the potential guilty party once they make an arrest. Defendants on trial for any crime should insist on having a defence investigator for several reasons which she cites in this book.

The prosecuting Attorney's only have to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt for juries to return from deliberating on a case with a guilty verdict. Police are supposed to protect society from harm and not be biased when arresting someone of a crime. Witnesses are not supposed to be coerced or forced to speak about an accused person without proper representation if they request it. If a witness is not sure what they saw it is better to say nothing immediately if they are in shock or for any other reason. Police have been known to twist or bend a defendant's words while a defendant is trying to cooperate. If a witness or a defendant says nothing sometimes they are seen as uncooperative or unwilling to help.

Whether somebody is guilty or innocent they are still entitled to a fair trial and have competent legal representation. The Author cites case after case with innocent people being wrongly convicted without a Criminal Investigator working for the defence. This was interesting and enlightening information that has proven and convinced me that if I am ever wrongly accused to make sure my defence Attorney has somebody as skilled and thorough as this author working behind the scenes asking and interviewing potential witnesses and expert witnesses important questions. Often this Author has done background checks on those testifying in cases because contrary to what I always believed that the prosecutor has to supply the defence attorney with all discovery material and that doesn't always happen.

Thank you to Net Galley, April Niguera for my ARC.

This book is about a female investigator for the defense in court cases. I have often wondered how this job is done, what the mind set is, to possibly be trying to help someone that may be in fact guilty. This book has opened my mind to why a person would do such. We all know that the justice system may at times get things wrong, and if not for these type of investigators, more may be found guilty that are not. The author's writing style flows and it keeps you hooked until the last page. The addition of the "Cases in the News" were excellent. Just enough to let give you a brief synopsis of the crime, trial, conviction and how years later, they were exonerated and the method used for the exoneration. I read this book in one seating, very engrossing. This is a really good book. Thanks to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for the advanced reading copy in return for my honest review.