Best New Yorker Annals of Justice

At fourteen, Ron Bishop helped convict three innocent boys of murder. They’ve all lived with the consequences, Jennifer Gonnerman writes.

Nicholas Lemann on the contested past and the uncertain fate of affirmative action.

Rachel Monroe writes about why so many people create false stories about military service, the tools detectives use in their investigations, and what happens after the truth is exposed.

Jennifer Gonnerman on a group of volunteers who are helping incarcerated people negotiate a system that is all but broken.

An investigator who probes wrongful convictions now doubts a case of his own.

Sarah Stillman on the sex-offender registry, and what happens when juveniles are accused of misconduct.

Paul Kix on the 1985 rape of Michele Mallin, the wrongful imprisonment of Timothy Cole, and a criminal-justice innovation in Texas.

Ariel Levy writes on wrongfully convicted inmates who have been proved innocent, and asks how the state should decide how much to compensate the exonerated.

Jane Mayer on extraordinary rendition, which the Bush Administration used to send terrorism suspects to be tortured in prisons abroad.

Mavis Gallant on the case of Gabrielle Russier, which scandalized France.