John Grisham’s Wake-Up Call to Prevent Wrongful Convictions

As you dive in to real-life accounts of wrongful convictions in a variety of criminal cases, you'll be on the edge of your seat.

"Framed: Astonishing True Stories of Wrongful Convictions" by John Grisham and Jim McCloskey.

The author and former lawyer John Grisham has an impressive legal background, one that lends credibility to his over three dozen crime and courtroom novels. In his first nonfiction work, “The Innocent Man” released in 2012, Grisham shone a light on the true story of Ron Williams who was sentenced to death after a flimsy investigation that included tainted evidence and lying witnesses.

This experience led Grisham to meet Jim McCloskey, whose organization Centurion Ministries works to right wrongful convictions. Founded in 1983, it was the first organization in the world devoted to freeing the innocent.

The two began talking about the over 70 cases McCloskey’s team worked on, and from those conversations came this co-authored work, “Framed: Astonishing True Cases of Wrongful Convictions.” Readers will get an in-depth look at 10 cases, their investigations, the courtroom drama, the sentencing of innocent individuals, and the lengthy legwork to get these sentences overturned.

Grisham wrote: “Our goal with this book is to raise awareness of wrongful convictions and in some small way help to prevent more of them.”

A Train Wreck

Right off the bat, “The Norfolk Four” will have readers scratching their heads and wondering how this conviction could have ever happened. Considered one of the “greatest train wrecks in the history of American criminal justice,” this story concerns the rape and murder of a Navy wife while her husband was deployed at sea.

The real murderer remained free and continued to commit sexual assaults while a variety of suspects were brought in and cruelly interrogated. Some of those wrongfully convicted of the crime, though eventually freed from prison, continue to suffer from PTSD.

Throughout the stories, Grisham brings to our attention the tactics that law enforcement uses to win a confession.  In “The Norfolk Four,” readers learn that “the law allows the police to lie about the results of the polygraph test,” something that innocent suspects readily agree to take to prove their innocence. Even with a passing score, they’re confused by the failed results and begin to doubt their own memory.

Those brought in for questioning also tend to also waive their Miranda Rights and refuse an attorney since, after all,  they have nothing to hide. They believe that demanding one implies guilt.

In the case of “The Norfolk Four,” detectives took advantage of the suspects’ weakened state after hours of grueling questioning. They made suggestions about how the crime was committed. To one suspect, the detective offered that the suspect might have been “sleepwalking.” This supposedly explained why they had no recollection of the events. At one point, detectives had seven suspects in custody for the murder when all evidence pointed to a lone killer.

One of those detained, Dan Williams, was interrogated for 11 hours, and eventually broke. He said he was “frightened, drained, and thoroughly confused,” and “gave the detectives what they wanted.” In his confession, he accepted the idea that he was sleepwalking and included confused and fabricated details just to please.

When the detectives saw his description didn’t match the crime, they brought him back in for more questioning and more “suggestions.” Crumbling under the pressure, Williams gave them the confession they wanted. He was charged and pleaded guilty to avoid a death penalty trial. But six more suspects were brought in, questioned, interrogated and traumatized. It took years before the real killer was uncovered.

Shoddy Autopsies

Skilled storyteller that he is, Grisham begins his chapters with an intriguing fact about the kind of crime story we’re about to read. In “Autopsy Games,” we learn a bit about the first recorded autopsy, performed on Julius Caesar in 44 B.C.

Over the centuries, autopsies became a useful tool in criminal investigations. The procedure was regulated by the the National Association of Medical Examiners, and their recommendation was that a medical examiner do no more than 250 to 325 cases a year to ensure quality reporting. However, due to shortages in the profession, pathologists were grabbing case after case, performing shoddy work, with one claiming to have performed 1,000 autopsies in a year.

The main character in one story is a Mississippi medical examiner who went from 320 autopsies a year in 1988 to 1200 in 1990. His medical reports, wrote Grisham, “had errors, and plenty of them.”  Because of “bogus scientific testimony,” an innocent man—who had an alibi—was charged. The killer was free to strike again.

An Innocent’s Execution

In “The Fire Does Not Lie,” we learn how in 1976 the United States Supreme Court lifted a ban on executions. The states using the death penalty resumed their hangings, lethal injections, and firing squads. The organization that tracks these executions, The Death Penalty Information Center, lists 20 men who were “probably” innocent.

Grisham wrote that while the courts tend to lose interest in a case when the defendant is dead, “journalists and innocence advocates do not.” He leads readers into the story with this dramatic introduction: “In 2004, Cameron Todd Willingham was executed for a crime that never occurred.”

On a December morning, Willingham’s house caught fire with Todd (the name he went by) and three daughters asleep. He was awakened by their calls, but the smoke was too thick for him to find them; the three children perished. The cause of the fire was incorrectly deemed intentional, and Todd was charged with murder. He served twelve years before being executed. Because reporters, lawyers and advocates never let this case be forgotten, they forced crucial details to be uncovered, and the cause of the fire to be reclassified as accidental.

The cause of the fire that took the lives of Willingham’s three young children was attributed to “bad forensics” and the falsification of official records. However, it wasn’t enough to give Willingham a posthumous full pardon. What did come from this case, though, was the understanding that arson investigators need better training, and it placed the debate over capital punishment “into the forefront.”

‘Innocent Until Proven Guilty’

In this collaboration, Grisham and McCloskey agreed to choose five stories each, and to work on them on their own with little input from the other. All are page-turners; all take a microscopic look at what leads to wrongful convictions in the first place. These include factors like racism, misconduct, flawed testimony, and corruption in the court system.

While it’s exhilarating to read the detailed accounts of the steps taken to free the innocent, the satisfaction of justice finally being served is short-lived. We read the damage caused to those wrongly convicted in the words of one freed suspect who finds it impossible to go one day without thinking about the experience: “The nightmare is triggered in many ways: the sight of a police car; a television show in which the cops kick in a door, or even a suspicious look from a neighbor.”

Grisham and McCloskey are reminding us that we must do better and never forget that “a fundamental principle of our legal system is a presumption of innocence.”

‘Framed: Astonishing True Stories of Wrongful Convictions’ By John Grisham and Jim McCloskey Doubleday, Oct. 15, 2024 Hardcover: 368 Pages

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