Flawed Convictions

Deborah Tuerkheimer is a Professor of Law at Northwestern University School of Law. From 2009 to 2014 she was Professor of Law at DePaul University College of Law. She earned her undergraduate degree from Harvard College and her law degree from Yale. After clerking for the Alaska Supreme Court, Professor Tuerkheimer served for five years as an Assistant District Attorney in the New York County District Attorney's Office, where she specialized in domestic violence and child abuse prosecution.

Acknowledgments ; Introduction ; Chapter One: A Medical Diagnosis of Crime ; The Prosecution Paradigm ; The Lure of Blame ; Chapter Two: Complications ; Scrutiny ; The New SBS ; Doubtful Convictions ; Chapter Three: The Triad Endures ; Today's SBS ; Child Abuse Specialization ; Prosecutorial Certainty ; Staying Power ; Chapter Four: Trials ; Deciding Guilt ; Case on Trial ; Chapter Five: Missed Diagnosis ; Diagnostic Error ; A Legal Perspective on Differential Diagnosis ; Anatomy of a Missed Diagnosis ; Chapter Six: Confessions ; Non-Confession Confessions ; Unreliable Confessions ; Inside the Interrogation Room ; Chapter Seven: Fluky Justice ; Acquittals ; Dismissals ; No-Arrest Cases ; Chapter Eight: Guilty Pleas ; A System in Flux ; When Innocents Plead Guilty ; The Meaning of Lopsided Pleas ; Chapter Nine: The Limits of Judicial Review ; Sufficiency Challenges ; Collateral Attack ; Chapter Ten: Reform ; Improving Medical Outcomes ; Upstream Innocence Protection ; Downstream Innocence Protection ; AFTERWORD ; INDEX