Clive Stafford Smith

Stafford Smith's new book, Injustice: Life and Death in the Courtrooms of America, isn't exactly a barrel of laughs. But it reads like a thriller, gripping and appalling by turn, following the case of a client convicted of a double murder and sentenced to death in 1986. In itself it's an extraordinary story, exposing incompetence and corruption, dodgy coppers and Colombian drug cartels, and to this day its protagonist remains behind bars – which is why Stafford Smith wrote the book. "I feel so guilty for failing him, and I thought I've got to take his case to the court of public opinion." But in doing so he tells a greater and more troubling tale still, about the Kafkaesque madness of a justice system that appears engineered to deliver anything but justice. More