Cannot deserialize instance of object out of START_ARRAY token in Spring 3 REST Webservice
This is related to Jackson and the way you're attempting to deserialize and initialize a container from an array.
While my usage context is a bit different, this may help some who get here from searching for Jackson-specific deserialization errors.
I had to do it like this:
List<Consultant> consultants = Arrays.asList( mapper.readValue(myJson.toString(), Consultants[].class));