Hi Dateline listeners my name is Dan Slepian and I've been a producer at Dateline for nearly 30 years.

I'd like to share a story with you that I think you might find interesting.

I've spent much of my career and my life diving deep into the criminal justice system, and along

the way I've uncovered what I've come to realize is a hidden epidemic, wrongful convictions. Now you may have heard parts of this journey on episodes of Dateline or in the podcasts I've hosted,

13 alibis and Letters from Sing Sing, which was a Pulitzer Prize finalist this year.

But there's so much more to these stories, and I've poured it all into my new book, The Sing Sing Files.

My book is so much bigger than the stories I told on those episodes and in those

podcasts. In the Sing Sing Files I'll introduce you to six innocent men, all

wrongly imprisoned.

From prison visits to court hearings, to interviews with friends, families, lawyers, and

witnesses.

I investigated the ugly truth of how these men were condemned, and then the Herculean struggle to bring the facts of their innocence to light.

This project is deeply personal to me and when you hear it, I hope it becomes deeply personal to you too.

If you like what you hear in the excerpt and want to hear more,

click the link in the episode notes to order a copy of the book or audioobook. The Sing Sing Files is also available wherever

books and audio books are sold. Today, I'll start from the beginning of the Sing Sing Files.

Chapter 1, Dateline Like so many of us, I was raised to believe that the people who took oaths to uphold

the law fairly and impartially always made sure that the bad guys, and certainly only the bad guys wound up behind bars. Even if the system

did get it wrong sometimes I trusted there were so many checks and balances.

Prosecutors, defense attorneys, judges, juries, appeals.

That someone staying in prison for a long time for something they didn't do

was either highly unlikely or extraordinarily rare.

...