I’ve enjoyed quite a few books by John Grisham. I liked some of his early fiction a great deal. His more recent novels have been hit or miss for me. This Christmas, I received a copy of Framed, a new work of nonfiction he wrote in collaboration with Jim McCloskey, the founder of a nonprofit called Centurion Ministries that works to exonerate the wrongfully convicted. The book has ten chapters. Each tells the story of a wrongful conviction. I found the book interesting and also somewhat unsatisfying, for reasons I explain below.
Ten chapters. Grisham and McCloskey each wrote five chapters. As noted above, each chapter is the story of a case. Some of the cases involved a single defendant, while others included multiple defendants. Some of the cases are well known in the criminal law community. Others have not attracted quite as much attention. Here’s a list of each chapter with a few details about each, including who wrote the chapter, the date of the offense, the most serious charge, and the disposition of the case:
- (Grisham) Danial Williams, Joe Dick, Eric Wilson, Derek Tick (a/k/a “The Norfolk Four”). 1997. Murder. The defendants were granted absolute pardons based on their claims of innocence.
- (McCloskey) Clarence Lee Brandley. 1980. Murder. An appellate court ordered a new trial, and the state declined to proceed.
- (Grisham), Levon Brooks and Kennedy Brewer. 1990 and 1992. Murder. As far as I can tell from the book, charges were dismissed during post-conviction proceedings. Another man confessed to both crimes and pled guilty to them, and the original defendants received financial compensation for the time they spent in prison.
- (McCloskey) Mark Jones, Kenneth Gardiner, and Dominic Lucci. 1992. Murder. During post-conviction litigation, an appellate court ordered a new trial, and the state declined to proceed. The defendants received financial compensation for the time they spent in prison.
- (Grisham), Sam Grasty, Derrick Chappell, Morton Johnson. 1997. Murder. A state trial judge ordered a new trial in post-conviction litigation. At time the book was written, the state’s appeal was pending.
- (McCloskey) Ellen Reasonover. 1983. Murder. The defendant’s conviction was vacated by a federal district court judge in habeas proceedings. She received large settlement from the authorities she sued after her release.
- (Grisham), Joe Bryan. 1985. Murder. The defendant was paroled after serving many years in prison. His conviction remains intact.
- (McCloskey) David Alexander, Harry Granger, John Collins, Ronnie Miller. 1976. Murder. The defendants were paroled. Their convictions remain intact, though others have confessed to the killing.
- (McCloskey) Kerry Cook. 1977. Murder. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals vacated the defendant’s conviction and stated that the case involved “solid support of actual innocence.” The state declined to reprosecute.
- (Grisham) Todd Willingham. 1991. Murder. The defendant was executed.
Observations. The book effectively portrays the human cost of erroneous convictions. The men, and one woman, whose stories are told in the book lost contact with loved ones, missed out on decades of their lives, suffered the indignity of incarceration, were in some cases victims of sexual abuse or other violence while in prison, and in other cases dealt with severe challenges upon release. The book also paints an inspiring picture of many of the investigators and attorneys who fought for the exoneration of the defendants.
The book illustrates the different meanings that can attach to terms like “wrongful conviction” or “exoneration.” Three chapters involve defendants whose convictions remain intact, while a fourth was under appellate review at the time the book went to press. Several others involve defendants who were awarded new trials and who the state declined to retry, but who were never pardoned or declared innocent by any tribunal or authority. The authors clearly believe in the innocence of each defendant portrayed in the book, but in some instances the defendants’ guilt or innocence remains contested or uncertain.
All ten chapters tell the stories of murder cases. Some of the factors that contribute to wrongful convictions are more likely to be present in very serious cases. For example, the public pressure to identify a suspect and solve a crime is higher when the crime creates safety concerns. Furthermore, the willingness of lawyers to pursue a case, and of judges to entertain the lawyers’ arguments, may be greater when the stakes are higher. Still, I wonder how many people are wrongly convicted of less serious crimes each year. The individual toll from each such conviction may be less pronounced, but the cumulative effect may still be substantial. The true rate of wrongful convictions is unknown. This recent NIJ paper explores several recent estimates in the 4% to 5% range, and notes that for some types of crimes – particularly sexual assaults – the rate may be higher. This article by former federal judge Paul Cassell argues that such estimates are flawed and exaggerated and that the true rate is likely less than 0.1%.
Most of the cases summarized in the book are decades old. Two arose from crimes committed in the 1970s, three from the 1980s, and five (actually, six, since Chapter 3 is about two different cases) from the 1990s. None are more recent. It is possible that better forensic science, increased public awareness of the risk of wrongful convictions, and a stronger defense bar have reduced the incidence of wrongful convictions over time. It is also true that exonerations often take a long time to work their way through the court system. Perhaps in twenty years there will be a sequel based on cases working their way through the courts today.
Stories, not synthesis. I found the stories in the book compelling. But I was surprised that the authors chose not to attempt to draw broader lessons from the ten stories. Each story contains some reflections on the failings that led to the conviction in question. But the book does not contain a section where the authors attempt to weave the stories together into a broader argument about the causes of, and solutions to, wrongful convictions. Grisham writes in the preface of a “broken judicial system” and asserts that if we “had the political gumption to change unfair laws, practices, and procedures, we could avoid virtually all wrongful convictions.” I am less confident than Grisham seems to be about the perfectibility of a fundamentally human system. But I would like to hear more detail about the “laws, practices, and procedures” that he thinks need to change, and how a better system might work.
I learned only recently that Grisham practiced personal injury law and criminal defense before becoming a writer. His views on the criminal justice system are summed up here: “There are still thousands of innocent people in prison and more get locked up every year. The police and prosecutors responsible for wrongful convictions are immune from punishment. Racism is a huge factor at every phase: suspicion, arrest, bail, indictment, trial, and sentencing.” Those beliefs may hint at some of the changes he would like to see, but I still would have liked a list of proposed reforms.
Other reviews. The New York Times review of the book is here. The Associated Press has a brief review here. There has been some controversy about the book. As the Washington Post reports here, the Times and ProPublica contend that Grisham effectively lifted portions of Chapter 7 from the work of a reporter they jointly employed, without sufficient attribution. The reporter wrote several stories about the case, and the Post story compares some of the wording used in the stories and in Grisham’s book. I haven’t read the original stories and so don’t have a firm opinion about the allegations, which Grisham denies.
Conclusion. Some of the factors that contribute to wrongful convictions are well-known, and many of those are present in one or more of the stories in the book: false testimony from informants, inaccurate perception or recollection by eyewitnesses, investigative tunnel vision, pseudoscience, and inadequate defense advocacy. The book is a good reminder of how these factors can coalesce into a wrongful conviction, and of the harm that is done when they do.
On the other hand, I thought some of the chapters, particularly the ones Grisham wrote, tended towards narratives that struck me as dramatic but perhaps too simple. Several of Grisham’s chapters feature nefarious police and prosecutors engaging in dirty tricks to obtain obviously unsupported convictions. I’m no expert on the cases in the book, and perhaps those depictions are accurate. But my guess is that erroneous convictions more often result from honest mistakes, well-meaning zeal, and the inherent pressures of an under-resourced system charged with making life-changing decisions than from the kind of malevolence the book sometimes portrays. Even if the book is spot on with regard to the individual cases it describes, I fear that focusing on the most dramatic examples of malfeasance risks obscuring more commonplace failings of the criminal justice system.
In the end, I liked the book. It was a gripping read and the stories have stuck with me. In that sense, the authors accomplished what they set out to do. I just wish that they had set out to accomplish a little bit more.
