Title:

The Sing Sing Files

Author:

Dan Slepian

Category:

Non-fiction

Rating:

Date Reviewed:

April 27, 2025

his is not a book to read if you believe in the innate goodness of your fellow man.

Dan Slepian is a producer of a TV news magazine called Dateline. He investigates various stories and will air an episode if the story is compelling enough. One tip Slepian got was that there were two men serving twenty-five years to life in New York's notorious Sing-Sing prison for a murder that they did not commit. The tipster knew they were innocent because he knew who the real killers were. Slepian was skeptical at first, but followed up on the story and soon was amazed to discover that the tipster was correct.

The prisoners are held in New York's maximum security prison, Sing Sing. While conducting research at the prison, Slepian is told about another innocent man. And then another. The subtitle of this book is One Journalist, Six Innocent Men, and a Twenty Year Fight for Justice. Reading this book makes it hard to put any faith in America's justice system. The men were imprisoned by the New York City District Attorney's Office, presumable the best prosecutors in the land. But in the long quest to free the innocent men, it becomes clear that the prosecutors deliberately withheld evidence that would have prevented a conviction.

One thing that is clear is that these men had incompetent defense lawyers. Perhaps they were too poor to afford a real lawyer and had to rely on an overwhelmed court-appointed public defender. One of the men locked away had thirteen witnesses that said he was in Florida at the time the murder took place in New York City! Another was talking on the phone to his mom while he was supposedly out committing murder - and the phone records backed him up. A teenager was beaten by a detective in an interrogation room until he confessed to a murder that he was not involved in. In none of these cases is there the slightest forensic evidence placing the prisoners at the scene of the crime. The two men who were said to have shot the bouncer didn't even know each other.

What motivates a detective or prosecuting attorney to ruin the lives of men that they know are innocent? Even when Slepian presents evidence to the DAs office that should (at a minimum) have been grounds for a retrial, the District Attorney fights every inch of the way. Admitting that a mistake has been made is clearly the hardest thing a human can do. Did the detective who pounded a confession out of the teenager go home and sleep soundly that night, confident that he had caught a guilty criminal?

Slepian speculates that up to five percent of the prison population is actually innocent. Given that the number of people incarcerated in the US is greater than two million, that means 100,000 innocent men languish behind bars, many with little hope of ever walking free again. It is a sobering thought. When Slepian's efforts finally get one of the men released, it still doesn't return the twenty years of life stolen from him.

Slepian talks a bit about his role on Dateline. At one point he started looking for story ideas by scanning the worst corners of the online Craigs-List. He ends up encountering hit men, sellers of human body parts, lunatics that think they are vampires and want to drink human blood, scam artists of every stripe imaginable, and people trying to sell babies. He said the depths of human depravity that he uncovered left him rattled. Meeting people like that would certainly leave me distressed.

The Sing Sing Files is not an uplifting book. The reader is bound to be disturbed at how flawed our justice system really is. I did not feel joy when I read about the men finally being given their freedom. Instead my reaction is a mixture of anger, sadness and disgust that our justice system is so flawed. Naturally, none of the corrupt detectives, police officers or prosecuting attorneys who put these men into prison ever faced the slightest accountability.