Case of a Lifetime: A Criminal Defense Lawyer's Story » (Reprint)

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.

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.

For fans of Law and Order and investigative news programs like 20/20, Case of a Lifetime is a chilling look at what really determines a person's innocence.

Publishers Weekly

Smith, a law professor at Georgetown, has defended thousands of clients, but it was her first client, Patsy Kelly, who stood out most. Smith was still a law student when they met in 1980, and Kelly was serving a life sentence for driving the getaway car in a felony-murder. The conviction was based on eyewitness testimony that was riddled with inconsistencies. After a series of interviews with Kelly, Smith became convinced that she was innocent and worked doggedly for the next 25 years to free her. Kelly was released in 2005, after serving 28 years, but it was a parole and not through Smith's efforts. The book's strength is Smith's openness about her life as a criminal defense attorney and her sophisticated thinking about the moral and ethical dilemmas criminal lawyers routinely navigate, such as how to represent the guilty, how far to go to ensure their clients' freedom and the ultimate question, what is their responsibility to the truth? Aspiring lawyers and anyone interested in the criminal justice system will benefit from reading Smith's account. (July)

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Prologue

• Innocence

• Truth

• Hope

• Freedom