Across the USA, DNA testing is revealing the innocence of wrongfully convicted and imprisoned people. Dallas leads the nation in these exonerations. TESTED: How Twelve Wrongly Imprisoned Men Held Onto Hope dramatically reveals how these men kept their hope, their faith, and their sanity.

As authors Peyton Budd and Dorothy Budd interviewed these men, they discovered the secrets of what sustained them behind bars. These innocent men illuminate both the failures of the justice system and the resilience of the human spirit. Their surprising stories teach us that no matter how we are tested in our lives, it is never wrong to have hope.

“Q.: Out of the twelve men in this book, there are two Anglos, one immigrant, and the rest are African-American. Does that pattern hold true across the cases you see?
A.: You have to remember that in Dallas in the mid-80s to the 90s, there were some assumptions. If there was a cross-racial rape, then I think it was easy to snag a black guy for that. Also, if the suspect had a prior record, he gets on the police’s radar screen, In the authorities’ minds, this guy is trouble, wo when something happens, they go to him first. Often they try to make him the perpetrator of something that’s much more violent than anything he has previously shown himself capable of. I don’t know how to train police, and even the DAs (District Attorneys), to prevent this tunnel vision.
Just because a suspect did something in the past doesn’t mean he made a greater leap in the future. I think it also comes down to not only the tunnel vision but also the way you get promoted. Whether you were a police officer or a DA, you weren’t going to get promoted if you didn’t get convictions. Like the investigator in the Steven Phillips’ rape case who set up that crazy lineup where all twenty victims were in the same room. He got detective of the year for his role in this case.”
(from the conversation with Michelle Broom, a public defender for Dallas County)