Framed Jim McCloskey – Powerful Cases, Proven Injustice

A justice system that can take your freedom—and sometimes your life—on the strength of a hunch, a coerced “confession,” or a lab report that never should have held up. Framed shows—through ten meticulously reported cases—that wrongful convictions aren’t tragic flukes but recurring outcomes of incentives, tunnel vision, and official misconduct that can be fixed when we face the evidence and reform the rules.

Evidence snapshot: Grisham and McCloskey present ten cases involving 21 defendants; 4 were sent to death row (two within days of execution), 1 was executed, and the group split 10 white / 11 Black—with DNA decisive in some cases but official misconduct and perjury pervasive across most.

Framed is best for readers who want narrative nonfiction that doubles as a crash course in how wrongful convictions really happen; not for those seeking tidy villains and easy endings—because the truth here is complicated, human, and often enraging.

1. Introduction

Title and Author Information.

Framed: Astonishing True Stories of Wrongful Convictions is a first-edition 2024 nonfiction collection from Doubleday (New York), authored by John Grisham and Jim McCloskey

The book interweaves Grisham’s narrative power with McCloskey’s four decades of casework at Centurion (formerly Centurion Ministries), a pioneering innocence organization involved in ~70 exonerations—a number Grisham highlights to explain why these stories matter. “Centurion has been involved in about seventy exonerations,” he writes, emphasizing McCloskey’s on-the-ground role when clients “tasted freedom.”

From page one of the Preface, Grisham states the book’s mission plainly: to raise awareness of wrongful convictions and “shine light on… abusive tactics” that convict the innocent—a goal both authors frame as necessary for policy change.

This is investigative narrative nonfiction that compresses vast legal records—“thousands… tens of thousands of pages”—into ten taught case histories. McCloskey explains he drew from trial transcripts, police reports, judicial opinions, and Centurion investigative files to ensure accuracy.

Wrongful convictions are not rare aberrations but predictable products of misconduct, flawed forensics, coercive interrogations, and tunnel vision, and they will persist unless laws and practices change.

2. Background

Grisham’s prior nonfiction—The Innocent Man (2006)—established his bona fides on wrongful convictions, a field where he’s spent years meeting exonerees and documenting the system’s “broken” parts.

The collaboration was natural: McCloskey—often called a founder or “godfather” of the innocence movement—writes five of the ten cases from files he personally worked, while Grisham contributes five of his “favorite stories.” The book’s subtitle announces the through-line: astonishing true stories that “happen far more often” than most readers imagine.

3. Framed Summary

At a glance

• What it is: Ten narrative case studies of wrongful convictions—five written by John Grisham, five by Jim McCloskey—published by Doubleday in 2024 (First Edition; LC record 2024012479).
• What it covers: Cases include The Norfolk Four, Guilty Until Proven Innocent (Clarence Brandley), Autopsy Games, Last Night Out (Savannah soldiers), Unknown Male #1, Tale of the Tapes (Ellen Reasonover), The Absence of Motive (Joe Bryan), Through the Looking-Glass (Iberia Parish: David Alexander & Harry Granger), “Oh, What a Tangled Web We Weave…” (Kerry Max Cook), and The Fire Does Not Lie (Cameron Todd Willingham).
• What the authors say they’re trying to accomplish: To “shine light on… abusive tactics” that produce wrongful convictions, and to prevent more of them. Grisham notes that Centurion has been involved in “about seventy exonerations.”
• The scope and stakes: Across the ten stories, 21 defendants were entangled; four landed on death row, two came within days of execution, and one was executed; the racial split of the 21 is 10 white / 11 Black. The authors attribute the convictions primarily to law-enforcement misconduct (coerced confessions, suppressed exculpatory evidence, incentivized perjury, discredited forensics).

Highlighted events

• 1997–2009: The Norfolk Four—DNA vs. confessions. In July 1997, Michelle Bosko is raped and murdered in Norfolk, Virginia. Police coerce a series of confessions from sailors Dan Williams, Joe Dick, Eric Wilson, and Derek Tice—despite DNA excluding each and later matching only Omar Ballard, whose semen on a blanket was “21 billion times more likely” to be his than any white man’s (and 4.6 billion times more likely than any Black man’s). In 2009, Virginia grants conditional (not absolute) pardons to three of the men; Wilson had already been released.
• 1980–1990: “Guilty Until Proven Innocent”—Clarence Brandley. A Black school janitor in Conroe, TX, Clarence Brandley is sentenced to death in 1980; his case becomes a national touchpoint for racialized prosecutions until exoneration in 1990 (chapter title comes from Texas Monthly’s 1987 feature).
• 1999–2017: “Last Night Out”—the Savannah soldiers freed. After a 1992 street shooting in Savannah, three U.S. Army soldiers (Mark Jones, Dominic Lucci, Kenneth Gardiner) are convicted in 1992; Centurion’s investigation (2009–2012) persuades witnesses to recant. In December 2017, the men are released on bond pending retrial decisions.
• 1977–2007: Through the Looking-Glass—Iberia Parish. David Alexander and Harry Granger are convicted in rural Louisiana and serve thirty years before parole in 2006–2007; a 60 Minutes broadcast and advocacy by a former sheriff’s detective help tip the balance.
• 1984–1999: Tale of the Tapes—Ellen Reasonover. A St. Louis homicide hinges on incentivized jailhouse snitches and selectively recorded interviews; a federal judge’s 75-page opinion vacates the conviction in 1999, after Centurion’s document haul.
• 1990s–2018: The Absence of Motive—Joe Bryan. A Texas high-school principal is imprisoned for decades based on dubious “bloodstain pattern analysis” later discredited; the case becomes a national lesson in forensic error. (Grisham cites Pamela Colloff’s 2018 reporting “Blood Will Tell.”)
• 1977–2024: “Oh, What a Tangled Web…”—Kerry Max Cook. A 47-year saga in Tyler, Texas, spanning four trials, hair microscopy, prosecutorial misconduct, and evolving DNA litigation; as of 2024, Cook still awaits a final ruling on innocence relief.
• 1991–2004+: Autopsy Games—misused forensics in Mississippi. Grisham ties these chapters to broader critiques of coroner and bite-mark testimony (“the terror campaign of Dr. Steven Hayne and Dr. Michael West”).
• 1991–2004/2009: The Fire Does Not Lie—Cameron Todd Willingham. A Texas father is executed after arson “science” later denounced as junk; Grisham notes the massive record, media scrutiny, and a 900-page forensic commission report.
• Systemic summary from the authors: “The twenty-one defendants… spent decades in prison… Four landed on death row… one was tragically executed… racial makeup… ten white and eleven Black… convictions were rooted in law enforcement misconduct.”

Chapter-by-chapter synthesis

1) The Norfolk Four — coerced confessions vs. hard DNA

What happened. In July 1997, Omar Ballard visited neighbor Michelle Bosko while her husband was at sea; intoxicated, he raped and fatally stabbed her. The small (≈700 sq. ft.) apartment showed a single-attacker pattern; exhaustive scene work found no forced entry and no other fingerprints.

How the case went wrong. Detectives quickly zeroed in on sailor Dan Williams after a neighbor’s suggestion, then used marathon interrogations to produce increasingly contaminated confessions from Williams, Joe Dick, Eric Wilson, and Derek Tice—despite nonmatching DNA and glaring factual errors (e.g., claims of a claw-hammer break-in when no such marks existed).

As the DNA excluded one suspect after another, police invented a moving “gang” theory (from three, to seven, to eight men) to explain away the mismatch.

The DNA that should have ended it. When Ballard’s DNA was finally checked—March 3, 1999, 20 months after the murder—the lab reported astronomical likelihood ratios: 21 billion× (blanket), 23 million× (vaginal swab) that the semen was Ballard’s; blood under the victim’s fingernails also matched him. Only Michelle and Ballard’s DNA were at the scene.

How power sustained error. Even after Ballard confessed (and insisted he acted alone), Norfolk authorities cut him a no-death-penalty deal while maintaining the sailors’ guilt. Grisham writes: “There was one assailant, one DNA match. Omar Ballard … acted alone.”

Why this case matters. Innocence Project cofounder Peter Neufeld called the prosecution “off-the-wall… unconscionable… unfathomable” because DNA excluded the defendants who were still prosecuted; he said bluntly: “DNA trumps the confession.”

Outcome. In August 2009, conditional pardons came for three sailors (not full exonerations); 2008 saw 26 former FBI agents publicly declare “the Norfolk Four are innocent.”

One-line quote to remember: “There was one assailant, one DNA match. Omar Ballard… acted alone.”

2) Guilty Until Proven Innocent — Clarence Brandley (Conroe, TX)

What happened. Brandley, a Black school janitor, was convicted and sent to death row in 1980; investigative reporting, new evidence, and a landmark evidentiary hearing led to exoneration in 1990. McCloskey credits extensive sources (including Texas Monthly’s 1987 “Guilty Until Proven Innocent”) and his own 1987 case work.

Themes. Racial bias, tunnel vision, and the structural difficulty of reversing a capital conviction once police and prosecutors “lock in” a narrative.

3) Autopsy Games — Mississippi forensics

What happened. Grisham situates this chapter in the long shadow of Mississippi coroner practices—the “terror campaign of Dr. Steven Hayne and Dr. Michael West”—that tainted prosecutions like Kennedy Brewer and Levon Brooks.

Themes. “Expert” testimony without rigorous science; how a state’s forensic culture can mass-produce injustice.

4) Last Night Out — Savannah soldiers (Jones, Lucci, Gardiner)

What happened. After a 1992 street shooting, three young soldiers were convicted following a hasty trial whose jury deliberated to 11:51 p.m., Nov. 19, 1992; at 12:05 a.m. Nov. 20, all three received life sentences—after a nine-minute sentencing hearing.

How the case shifted. Years later, Centurion found witnesses and secured affidavits undermining key testimony; a recantation from James White (whose vantage was 72 feet away on a moonless night) carried heavy weight. In Dec. 2017, the men walked out on $30,000 bond each (covered by a benefactor) wearing “i didn’t do it” T-shirts.

Themes. Nighttime identifications, juror pressure, and how innocence work often turns on post-conviction field investigations and affidavits persuading courts to revisit settled verdicts.

5) Unknown Male #1 — Chester, PA

What happened. A pair of co-defendants’ cases (Morton Johnson, Sam Grasty) hinge on DNA labeled as “Unknown Male #1,” an ambiguity that should have signaled caution. Grisham’s source notes identify Centurion litigator Paul Casteleiro and the Innocence Project’s Vanessa Potkin as key figures.

Themes. DNA that points to an unknown perpetrator is often treated as inconvenient noise—until post-conviction attorneys force the system to confront it.

6) Tale of the Tapes — Ellen Reasonover (St. Louis)

What happened. Reasonover’s conviction rested on incentivized in-jail informants and partial recordings; Centurion compiled massive records, and a federal judge issued a 75-page decision vacating the conviction in 1999.

Themes. How “snitch testimony” and selective taping can be made to fit a theory—and how disciplined archival digging unravels it.

7) The Absence of Motive — Joe Bryan (Texas)

What happened. Bryan, a respected principal, was convicted largely on a controversial bloodstain pattern narrative later challenged as junk science; Grisham cites Pamela Colloff’s award-winning 2018 reporting as essential.

Themes. “If the motive makes no sense, check the science.” Forensic claims must be replicable, not rhetorical.

8) Through the Looking-Glass — David Alexander & Harry Granger (Iberia Parish, LA)

What happened. After decades of fruitless appeals, Centurion and attorney Peggy Woodward assembled towering records (a 178-page legal narrative plus 146 exhibits). The pair were finally paroled in Dec. 2006 and Jan. 2007, helped by a 60 Minutes piece and even the victim’s daughter’s letter asserting “tainted evidence.”

Themes. When courts won’t reopen, parole—though short of vindication—may be the only path; bipartisan moral suasion (including from former law officers) matters.

9) “Oh, What a Tangled Web We Weave / When First We Practice to Deceive” — Kerry Max Cook (Tyler, TX)

What happened. A 47-year odyssey through four trials and evolving forensic critiques; 2015–2016 habeas proceedings led a judge to recommend vacating Cook’s conviction but deny actual-innocence relief; as of 2024, Cook still awaits the Texas CCA’s ruling.

Themes. The hardest truth: even with modern DNA and recantations, final innocence in court can be painfully elusive.

10) The Fire Does Not Lie — Cameron Todd Willingham (Texas)

What happened. Willingham was executed, then posthumously became the emblem of arson “science” run amok; Grisham cites a 900-page state forensic report and a vast record across The New Yorker, The Marshall Project, Texas Tribune, Chicago Tribune, Houston Chronicle, ACLU, Innocence Project, Frontline, and more.

Themes. Irreversibility. When bad forensics drive a capital conviction, the system’s margin for error is zero.

Cross-cutting lessons

1. Confessions can be catastrophically unreliable. In the Norfolk Four, interrogations produced incompatible, fact-contaminated confessions; Grisham notes that nearly 25% of DNA exonerations involve false confessions, and in 1997 only six states required recording entire interrogations (Norfolk PD adopted recording later).
2. DNA isn’t always used the way we assume. In Norfolk, all four sailors were excluded, yet prosecution persisted until Ballard’s confession and DNA forced reconsideration. Neufeld’s bottom line—“DNA trumps the confession”—was ignored for years.
3. Bad forensics = bad outcomes. From arson indicators to bloodstain “pattern” analysis to bite marks and coroner power, the book catalogs how techniques outrun science—with life-and-death consequences (Willingham).
4. Paper and people power free the innocent. Centurion and allied lawyers undertake years of witness hunts, affidavit work, and file-digging; McCloskey emphasizes field investigation and massive archives—“seventy or so individuals Centurion successfully freed.”
5. Outcomes vary—parole, conditional pardons, vacated convictions, and, sometimes, justice unfinished. Norfolk’s conditional pardons (2009) weren’t declarations of innocence; Iberia Parish’s men were paroled, not exonerated; Kerry Max Cook awaits a ruling in 2024.
6. Scale and demographics. The book’s 21 subjects demonstrate both the breadth and even racial split (10 white / 11 Black), underscoring that wrongful convictions cross racial lines even as individual cases reveal localized bias.

A few pivotal scenes and statements

• On the hollow core of coercion (Norfolk): “DNA trumps the confession.”
• On prosecutorial narrative inertia: “The final outcome… was determined not by the truth, but by lies.”
• On Ballard’s taped statement (and contamination): Ballard said Ford kept asking leading questions to get “the version of the crime he wanted,” and that the four sailors were guilty only of “agreeing.”
• On Centurion’s arc: “Centurion has been involved in about seventy exonerations.”

Why Framed is distinctive

1. Dual-voice authority. Grisham brings narrative clarity; McCloskey brings decades in the trenches freeing the wrongly convicted, framing each case with exacting documentary backbones (transcripts, police reports, court opinions, exhibits, and newsroom investigations).
2. Quantified stakes and verifiable claims. It’s unusually rich in dates, likelihood ratios (the Norfolk DNA figures), legal milestones (e.g., Nov. 19–20, 1992 verdict & sentencing in Savannah), and institutional actions (e.g., 26 former FBI agents publicly backing innocence; 900-page forensic report).
3. A candid indictment of process. The authors explicitly attribute these convictions not to innocent error but to misconduct—coercive interrogations, suppressed exculpatory evidence, and incentivized perjury—and they spell out how each tactic functioned inside a real case.

Thematic summary

• Tunnel vision is the first domino. In Norfolk, the “misguided hunch” formed while the body was still being photographed; everything after bent to fit it. When contradictory DNA appeared, officials scaled up the “gang” rather than restart.
• Interrogation without guardrails breeds fiction. In 1997, only six states required recording of full interrogations; Norfolk did not until later. The resulting contamination (detectives divulging autopsy details) explains why false confessions become eerily accurate on points only police know.
• The “experts” must be interrogated too. Arson indicators, bite marks, bloodstain “patterns”—several chapters reveal that authoritative tone ≠ validated method. The Willingham chapter, in particular, is a parable of post-hoc science deployed to secure a verdict.
• Courts are not the only door to freedom. In Louisiana, parole boards—moved by 60 Minutes, a former sheriff’s detective, and the victim’s daughter—provided the practical exit after courts closed theirs.
• Innocence advocacy is logistics and stamina. Witnesses must be found, persuaded, and protected; records must be harvested across decades. McCloskey’s chapters read like field manuals on how exonerations actually happen.

Framed statistics

• 21 defendants across 10 stories
• 10 white / 11 Black; 4 on death row; 2 within days of execution; 1 executed (Willingham)
• Centurion: ~70 exonerations to date
• Norfolk DNA: 21 billion× and 23 million× likelihood ratios for Ballard’s DNA on separate items
• Norfolk DNA hit: March 3, 1999
• Savannah verdict: Nov. 19–20, 1992; release on bond: Dec. 20, 2017
• Iberia Parish paroles: Dec. 23, 2006 (Alexander), Jan. 19, 2007 (Granger)
• Norfolk conditional pardons: Aug. 6, 2009
• Cook’s pending ruling noted as of 2024
  (All from the book’s narrative and endnotes.)

Why these stories stay with you

Grisham and McCloskey don’t just recount errors; they document the bureaucratic habits that produce them—and the human grit it takes to undo them.

The stories move from claustrophobic interrogation rooms and brittle lab benches to courthouse retrenchments and, finally, to the sunlight outside prison gates. The authors close the circle by reminding us that wrongful convictions are preventable if we tighten laws and practices; they wrote the book to help make that happen.

Final chord: “If we… had the political gumption to change unfair laws, practices, and procedures, we could avoid virtually all wrongful convictions.”

4. Framed Analysis

Evaluation of content (evidence and reasoning).

The book’s evidentiary backbone is unusually transparent for narrative nonfiction. McCloskey explicitly lists the archival record he relies on—“transcripts… evidentiary hearings… legal briefs… [and] investigative memos”—and you feel that rigor in chapters like “Guilty Until Proven Innocent,” where exact dates, hearing transcripts, and judge’s orders create a timeline that’s both readable and legally persuasive.

The opening case, “The Norfolk Four,” is the book’s most accessible primer on how false confessions and tunnel vision collide with DNA. Despite overwhelming biological evidence identifying a single perpetrator (Omar Ballard), seven sailors were jailed, and four confessions (later discredited) drove convictions. As Grisham summarizes: “There was one assailant, one DNA match. Omar Ballard… acted alone.”

That claim aligns with external data: in 2024, the National Registry of Exonerations recorded 147 exonerations (196 added to the database, including prior-year cases), and its reports repeatedly show official misconduct as a primary driver and people of color as the majority of exonerees.

In fact, false confessions are a recurrent pattern—nearly 25% of DNA exoneration cases involve one. That’s not only consistent with the Innocence Project’s long-running analysis but also echoed by research on how jurors overweight confessions even when DNA conflicts (“when confessions trump DNA”).

Does the book fulfill its purpose?

Yes—because it marries compelling human storytelling (e.g., the granular chronology of the Bosko murder investigation) with systemic diagnosis (e.g., how a detective’s early “hunch” can harden into tunnel vision), and then it pairs the narrative with names, dates, and lab stats that withstand scrutiny.

The chapter lays out precise DNA likelihood ratios (e.g., “21 billion times more likely” than any white man) from the state lab’s results on Ballard—numbers that are not simply dramatic but dispositive.

Grisham’s prose stays disciplined and source-anchored: when he says prosecutors still charged sailors “excluded by DNA,” he’s citing case filings and court records, and later shows how outside experts and former attorneys general and judges converged on the same conclusion—Ballard acted alone—before a Virginia governor issued pardons.

The book also pairs those narratives with a policy thesis: “If we… had the political gumption to change unfair laws, practices, and procedures, we could avoid virtually all wrongful convictions.” That’s a clear recommendation, not just a lament.

5. Brief case focus: The Norfolk Four

A young woman, Michelle Moore-Bosko, is found murdered; investigators, following a hunch at the scene, fixate on a sailor neighbor and then spiral into a chain of coerced confessions from multiple sailors—even as DNA and physical evidence exclude them all.

When the crime lab finally profiles Omar Ballard, the numbers are overwhelming: the semen on the blanket is 21 billion times more likely to be his than any white man’s (and 4.6 billion times than any Black man’s), the vaginal sample is 23 million times likelier to be his (20 million vs. any Black man), and the blood under Michelle’s fingernails also matches Ballard.

Despite that, seven sailors sat in jail; three more men (the “Eight Man Gang” add-ons) were charged and then dropped when the theory collapsed. Years later, outside experts, former Virginia attorneys general, and FBI veterans publicly agreed: Ballard acted alone; the sailors’ confessions were coerced and unreliable; and the men deserved pardons—which eventually came.

According to advocacy records and news reports, three of the four were granted conditional pardons in 2009; in 2017, the Governor granted absolute pardons, fully acknowledging their innocence—an arc that mirrors the book’s claim that truth often arrives last.

6. Strengths and Weaknesses

What’s compelling or innovative.

As a reader, I appreciated the book’s dual-voice structure: Grisham provides the novelistic momentum, and McCloskey supplies documentary heft from decades in the trenches.

The Norfolk Four chapter becomes a blueprint: it shows tunnel vision crystallizing at a photographed crime scene, the sidelining of an obvious suspect, and how a cascade of coerced confessions can outweigh biological facts—until outside scrutiny forces a reckoning.

The clarity of numbers stands out. The text doesn’t hand-wave; it cites the race split among the 21 defendants (10 white, 11 Black), the number sent to death row, and even the execution that should haunt us all. It names the agents, the firms, the judges, the dates—and quotes people carefully, like Peter Neufeld’s pithy standard: “DNA trumps the confession.”

On a craft level, the book also respects limits on what DNA can do—Grisham and McCloskey make clear that most of these cases were not solved by DNA alone; more often, they were undone by exposing perjury, suppressed evidence, and coercive tactics. That nuance is true to the broader data: in many exonerations, misconduct—not the lack of science—is the decisive factor.

Where I struggled or wanted more.

At moments, the righteous anger is palpable—and justified—but some readers may wish for an explicit, end-of-chapter policy checklist (e.g., mandatory electronic recording of interrogations; strict Brady enforcement with penalties; open-file discovery; peer-reviewed forensic standards; and funding for post-conviction testing).

The recommendations are present, but sometimes embedded within the narrative arc rather than laid out as a structured reform agenda.

In two or three places, the shock value of official mistakes risks overshadowing the quieter truth that wrongful convictions often persist because of institutional inertia rather than cartoonish bad actors; where the authors do show that inertia (e.g., conditional vs. absolute pardons), the point lands powerfully.

7. Reception

News coverage and trade copy describe Framed as a return to Grisham’s nonfiction roots and a collaboration with a movement leader; the Associated Press grouped it with other 2024/2025 books spotlighting innocence work, while major booksellers and Grisham’s official site underline the ten-case scope and systemic themes.

Beyond the book, the Norfolk Four itself has been a touchstone in media narratives about false confessions. Advocacy groups document the timeline from conditional pardons (2009) to absolute pardons (2017), and TIME summarized the final pardons by Governor Terry McAuliffe while also noting the detective’s later federal conviction for unrelated crimes—an important nuance in public accountability debates.

More broadly, the National Registry of Exonerations continues to quantify the scale: 3,646 exonerations (1989–2024) and 147 in 2024, with the majority people of color and misconduct the leading cause—numbers that echo Framed’s case-level claims and help explain why its message resonates.

8. Comparison with similar works

Grisham’s earlier The Innocent Man is a single-case deep dive; Framed is a ten-case mosaic that shows patterns repeating across jurisdictions.

Compared with investigative works like Dan Slepian’s The Sing Sing Files or classic scholarship on confessions (Kassin et al.), Framed leans into human narrative while remaining faithful to the record—a blend that gives non-lawyers what they need to understand without reading a stack of filings.

If you’ve followed Innocence Project updates—or read case studies in legal journals—the book will feel familiar in evidence but fresh in presentation, particularly where the authors juxtapose lab stats (e.g., Ballard’s DNA likelihood ratios) with the psychology of tunnel vision and the political realities of pardons.

9. Conclusion

Read Framed if you want to know how innocent people are convicted, why it keeps happening, and what it takes to undo it—case by case, signature by signature, test by test.

It is suitable for general audiences hungry for narrative momentum and for specialists who demand sourcing; the chapters can be read as stand-alone case studies for classes in criminal law, forensic science, psychology of confessions, and public policy.

And if you want to go deeper after finishing, look up the Norfolk Four post-book timeline (conditional pardons in 2009; absolute pardons in 2017), the Innocence Project’s false-confession statistics (~25% of DNA exonerations), and the National Registry of Exonerations annual reports—each an external confirmation that Framed’s thesis matches the broader record.