You Might Go to Prison, Even Though You’re Innocent

Surviving prison as an innocent person is a surreal nightmare no one wants to think about. But it can happen to you.

Justin Brooks has spent his career freeing innocent people from prison. With You Might Go to Prison, Even Though You’re Innocent, he offers up-close accounts of the cases he has fought, embedding them within a larger landscape of innocence claims and robust research on what we know about the causes of wrongful convictions.

Putting readers at the defense table, this book forces us to consider how any of us might be swept up in the system, whether we hired a bad lawyer, bear a slight resemblance to someone else in the world, or are not good with awkward silence. The stories of Brooks’s cases and clients paint the picture of a broken justice system, one where innocence is no protection from incarceration or even the death penalty. Simultaneously relatable and disturbing, You Might Go to Prison, Even Though You’re Innocent is essential reading for anyone who wants to better understand how injustice is served by our system.

Justin Brooks is a criminal defense lawyer, law professor, and the Founding Director of the California Innocence Project, where he has spent decades freeing innocent people from prison. He is the author of the only legal casebook devoted to the topic of wrongful convictions and was portrayed by Academy Award-nominated actor Greg Kinnear in the feature film Brian Banks.