Hal Humphreys talks with Boston private investigator John Nardizzi about what causes wrongful convictions and how private investigators can get involved in working “innocence cases” — and even make a living at it.
Please meet John Nardizzi — private investigator, lawyer, and writer. Not necessarily in that order. We first got to know him when we ran a writing contest in Pursuit in 2016. The prompt was to write about criminal defense investigations. John Nardizzi’s essay won.
Read it, and you’ll see why. These are the opening lines of his story, titled “Chasing the Ghost”:
The mothers of the dead sat next to the mothers of the killers. One of the killers, according to police, was my client. That he was only accused seemed immaterial. Four people were dead, one of them a child. Someone had to pay.
The man has some serious writing chops. He also has deep skills on the investigative side. Early in his career, he worked for an iconic San Francisco private investigator with an outsized reputation for tough tactics and celebrity clientele. You’ll hear more about that in the webinar.
Now John runs his own private investigations firm near Boston. He’s won million-dollar settlements for civil clients, and his work on innocence cases has led to some high-profile exonerations. That’s what this hour is all about: investigating innocence cases. John Nardizzi has done lots of that in the real world — with some wins and some bitter losses. He poured all that experience, triumph, and fury into his new novel, THE BURDEN OF INNOCENCE, which came out out on December 5th.
Click below to watch the webinar. Then scroll down to read Nardizzi’s winning essay in Pursuit.