Cries of Injustice: Innocents pay for crimes never committed [Book Review]

Abstract

In May 1987, Jesse Jacobs was tried for murder and sentenced to death in Montgomery County, Texas. Seven months later, the same prosecutor changed his mind and tried and convicted Jacob's sister, Bobbi Hogan, for the same murder, contending that Jacobs had neither committed the crime nor intended that the victim, Hogan's romantic rival, die. Nonetheless, the State of Texas still plans to execute Jacobs, and both state and federal courts have refused to bar his death. Unless the Rehnquist Court intervenes-an unlikely event for a court that weighs "the need for finality in capital cases" more heavily than claims of "actual innocence" (Herrera v. Collins, 1993)-Jacobs will die for a crime the state admits he did not commit. Few will notice, much less protest.