Ghost of the Innocent Man by Benjamin Rachlin

Ghost of the Innocent Man is both rare and essential, a masterwork of empathy. But through the harrowing and suspenseful account of one life, told from the inside, we experience the full horror of wrongful conviction on a national scale. Grimes, for all its outrage, dignity, and grace, is not a unique travesty. The jarring and unsettling truth is that the story of Willie J. That commission-unprecedented at its inception in 2006-remains a model organization unlike any other in the country, and one now responsible for a growing number of exonerations.With meticulous, prismatic research and pulse-quickening prose, Benjamin Rachlin presents one man's tragedy and triumph. These were spearheaded by his relentless champion, Christine Mumma, a cofounder of North Carolina's Innocence Inquiry Commission.

Here is the story of this everyman and his extraordinary quarter-century-long journey to freedom, told in breathtaking and sympathetic detail, from the botched evidence and suspect testimony that led to his incarceration to the tireless efforts to prove his innocence and the identity of the true perpetrator. Grimes, a gentle spirit with no record of violence, was shocked and devastated to be convicted of first-degree rape and sentenced to life imprisonment. Ghost of the Innocent Man brings us one of the most dramatic of those cases and provides the clearest picture yet of the national scourge of wrongful conviction and of the opportunity for meaningful reform.When the final gavel clapped in a rural southern courtroom in the summer of 1988, Willie J. Profoundly elevates good-cause advocacy to greater heights-to where innocent lives are saved.' -USA Today'A crisply written page turner.' -NPRA gripping account of one man's long road to freedom that will forever change how we understand our criminal justice systemDuring the last three decades, more than two thousand American citizens have been wrongfully convicted. Rachlin is a skilled storyteller.' -New York Times Book Review'A gripping legal-thriller mystery.

One of the Best Books of 2017: National Public Radio, San Francisco Chronicle, Library Journal, Shelf Awareness'Remarkable.

Ghost of the Innocent Man by Benjamin Rachlin