Junk Science and the American Criminal Justice System Spiral-Bound | April 5, 2022

"Junk Science is a book that should be on every true-crime reader's shelves. It is an eye-opening and infuriating tour through the failed idealism of forensic science as a discipline, how certain techniques like analyzing fibers and bite marks wilt under scrutiny, and how the criteria for 'experts' in a courtroom can be laughable at best and dangerous at worst, causing scores of innocent people to lose decades behind bars (or, in some heartbreaking instances, their lives.)."

—Slate, one of  "The Best New True Crime That Won't Make You Feel Gross"

"This j’accuse provides a broader look at a deeply disturbing aspect of a criminal justice system already considered racist and biased by many . . . The endemic injustices Fabricant lays bare will likely shake even advocates of robust law and order approaches."
—Publishers Weekly, STARRED review

"Eye-opening, endlessly engaging, and equally infuriating—this book is a must-read."
—Booklist

"Few people are more qualified to write about wrongful convictions in the U.S. than M. Chris Fabricant . . . Fabricant’s book shows how faulty ideas from blood spatter analysis to shaken baby syndrome were developed, infected court systems, and ruined a still-untold number of lives."
—Reason

"M. Chris Fabricant's ground-breaking new work is here to explain (and explain well) what happened, where we went wrong, and how many have paid the price of junk science convictions. Fabricant's long involv[ment] with the Innocence Project lends his book credence and weight, as he details overturned convictions, shoddy research, and the vast egos that underpinned some of the worst work in the history of criminal (in)justice." 
—CrimeReads, One of the Best Nonfiction Crime Books of 2022 

"Spellbinding . . . Junk Science is a sobering testament to the need for humility—for admitting that our knowledge is limited and fallible—both in science and in the law. Questions of justice are too important to be left to hocus-pocus." 
—Washington Examiner

"Fabricant expertly delves into now-discredited forensic tactics, including bite mark analysis and outmoded methods used in arson investigations, to show how investigators and prosecutors often used pseudo-science to put innocent people in prison for decades."
—Texas Observer

"Fabricant's groundbreaking work for the Innocence Project has exposed the corrosive effect that junk 'science' has in our criminal justice system. He's a brilliant writer and legal mind. A must-read."
—Pamela Colloff

"I believed in the polygraph test, in an unthinking way, right up until last week when I read a new book by M. Chris Fabricant, Junk Science and the American Criminal Justice System, which carefully and unarguably explains that almost every forensic science is unreliable, and most are entirely bogus."
—Spectator

"Often riveting, well-researched, and utterly convincing, this book sounds a frightening alarm about unreliable expert testimony in the courtroom."
—New York Journal of Books

"Inherently fascinating and impressively written, exceptionally well organized and presented . . . Singularly informative, thought-provoking, and critically important."
—Midwest Book Review

"Junk Science is beautifully written, a compilation of stories of trials, appeals, the vagaries of purported science in the courtroom, and the author's personal journey across two landscapes—the many states where he went to challenge bitemark or similar evidence and his own journey of growth as a lawyer and friend to those jailed based on what is at times head-shakingly bad proof . . . Put simply, Junk Science is essential reading . . ."
—ABA Criminal Justice Section Magazine

 "Through his book, Junk Science and the American Criminal Justice System, Fabricant said he is trying to create a new genre—not true crime, but 'untrue crime'—showcasing misused forensic science and its impact on innocent people."
—Sun-Sentinel

"Chris Fabricant has written a compelling account of how the 'junk science' of connecting bitemarks to human teeth has resulted in dozens of wrongful convictions of innocent people in America . . . This book powerfully exposes how forensic dentists have used methods with no scientific basis to convict the wrong people and the guilty people went free."
—Maurice Possley, Pulitzer Prize–winning author

"Fact by fact, case by case, scandal by scandal, M. Chris Fabricant expertly dissects some of the grossest failures of challenged forensic science techniques, providing a hard-nosed insider’s tour of a fifty-year legal war to improve the US criminal justice system. Junk Science is for anyone wanting to go behind the headlines of wrongful convictions, who hungers to probe their root causes, and who is fighting to win criminal justice reform, inside and out of the system. Fabricant writes here like a combatant with a duty to bear witness, burning to teach an adversarial system how to come to terms with scientific truth and to show the monstrous toll of its failures."
—Spencer S. Hsu, investigative reporter, two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist

"Junk Science is a powerful exposé of a broken criminal legal system, deeply researched and moving. A must-read for anyone interested in the role unreliable evidence plays in maintaining the status quo."
—Christina Swarns, executive director of the Innocence Project

"We think that science in the courtroom always serves justice—well, think again! This fascinating book by Innocence Project attorney M. Chris Fabricant shows how junk science in our criminal justice system is used to convict the innocent. Forget CSI and what you think of science in the courtroom, this eye-opening book from the front line of the battle for true justice could not be more urgent."
—Itiel Dror, Senior Cognitive Neuroscience Researcher, University College London