Book Summary and Reviews of Case of a Lifetime by Abbe Smith

Case of a Lifetime by Abbe Smith

Case of a Lifetime

A Criminal Defense Lawyer's Story

by Abbe Smith

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  • Published:
  • Jul 2008, 256 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

A recent study estimates that thousands of innocent people are wrongfully imprisoned each year in the United States. Some are exonerated through DNA evidence, but many more languish in prison because their convictions were based on faulty eyewitness accounts and no DNA is available. Prominent criminal lawyer and law professor Abbe Smith weaves together real life cases to show what it is like to champion the rights of the accused. Smith describes the moral and ethical dilemmas of representing the guilty and the weighty burden of fighting for the innocent, including the victorious story of how she helped free a woman wrongly imprisoned for nearly three decades.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"Aspiring lawyers and anyone interested in the criminal justice system will benefit from reading Smith's account." - Publishers Weekly.

"Starred Review. A captivating, emotionally intense investigation of the complicated relationship between truth and the justice system." - Kirkus Reviews.

This information about Case of a Lifetime was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

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Author Information

Abbe Smith

Abbe Smith, director of the Criminal Justice Clinic and professor of law at Georgetown Law School, is the recognized expert on legal ethics. She is a regular contributor to The New York Times, Boston Globe, Philadelphia Daily News, National Law Journal, and The Atlantic Monthly. She lives in Washington, D.C.

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