Review of the Ghost of an Innocent Man
Ghost of the Innocent Homo: A True Story of Trial and Redemption by Benjamin Rachlin is a 2017 Little, Brown and Co. Publication. "Our dangers practise not lie in too trivial tenderness to the defendant. Our process has been always haunted by the ghost of the Innocent homo convicted. Information technology is an unreal dream." This is an phenomenal nonfiction bookkeeping of a Willie J. Grimes' wrongful confidence in 1988, the beginning of 'The Innocence Project', and the long, hard fought battle to free an innocent man of a crime he did not commit. As we know, our perceptions and trust in our judicial – police force and lodge – system has changed drastically over the by several decades. With Dna prove exonerating so many wrongfully convicted people, the organisation has come up under fifty-fifty closer scrutiny, to the point where even hardcore believers in upper-case letter punishment no longer advocate for it, not because they stopped believing in the capital punishment, only considering they are worried to decease that an innocent person might die for a criminal offense they didn't commit. While, a skilful majority of those sitting in prisons are guilty of the crimes they are accused of, there are more than and more cases similar Willie Grimes coming to light. Part of the reason why is considering of forensics, and high -profile cases picked upwardly by the media. But, credit must be given to 'The Innocence Project', equally well. While all of these cases are absolutely heartbreaking, the case of Willie Grimes is peculiarly hard to accept. Willie worked two jobs and was in a stable relationship. But, when an elderly woman was raped, Willie was misidentified as the perpetrator, and the investigators knew it and helped the erroneous data along. Willie did what he could to fight his conviction, even while he suffered though horrible depression and affliction. The one bright spot for Willie and others in his position was the interest and involvement of Chris Mumma, who picked up his file. The road was long, filled with disappointments and setbacks, but after xx-iv years in prison, Willie was finally exonerated. This book highlights the means wrongful convictions tin can occur, with constabulary enforcement not post-obit up, ignoring facts, creating bear witness, coupled with eyewitness mistakes, in regards to identification, or with the defendant having limited legal recourse. In the hurry to close cases, a multitude of fault can happen, investigations are lazy/ muddied/messy- or alternative suspects are not pursued. It is a travesty. Not just exercise the innocent lose years of their lives they will never be able to get back or do over, simply justice is not existence served. How many other women were raped because the incorrect guy was bedevilled? How many people are walking effectually free as a bird, afterward having committed a criminal offence, while someone else is languishing in prison or worse- on death row? This is a very thought-provoking book, which is extremely well written and organized. It stays on topic without straying off class or going on long diatribes or preachy soap box sermons. The writer keeps the book pretty much almost Willie Grimes and his life in prison house, how he coped, how he fought, and almost Chris Mumma and the Innocence Project who noticed all the discrepancies in Willie's case and worked to bring his plight dorsum into the court system. Once someone is backside bars, it is very, very difficult to get a conviction overturned or get a new trial, even when there is overwhelming bear witness of innocence. Thankfully, in Willie'due south case, anybody's hard work paid off and he managed to get his moment of redemption. Willie'due south story angered me, frustrated me, and it was certainly a depressing and gloomy journey, just at the same fourth dimension, I was buoyed by time and energy people put in to see that Willie's case was finally heard. Overall, this volume is an important book, one of justice denied and justice constitute. There are thousands of people in prison for crimes they did non commit. It is as important as e'er to prevent anyone from spending a twenty-four hour period backside bars for a crime they are innocent of, and to incarcerate those who are guilty of those crimes, which makes organizations like The Innocence Projection necessary. 4.5 stars
iii.75 stars This non-fiction volume deals with the bad confidence of Willie "Woot" Grimes in 1988 for the rape of an elderly white adult female in North Carolina. Grimes, a black homo, had plenty of alibis for the time frame of the law-breaking, only the prosecution chose to proceed the e'er changing eye witness testimony of the victim, who was also unable to recognize the alleged perpetrator's motion-picture show. Willie was incarcerated from 1988 until his release in 2012 for a crime he did not commit. DNA was not available in 1988. Once the victim mentioned a mole on the perpetrators face - all the same never sure which side of the face it was on - prosecutors never looked whatever further than Willie. He had a mole on his face. Fruit was missing from a bowl in Carrie Elliott'south kitchen, with an apple core and a assistant skin thrown on the basis exterior her apartment. Those were never collected for fingerprinting, nor was the bowl where the fruit came from. Prosecution claimed a single hair belonged to Willie - one pilus among the 80 collected in Elliott's bedroom - and with DNA not established notwithstanding there could be no positive identification of a pilus. These are just skimming the surface of the bad law-breaking scene investigation and the supposed bear witness that was used against Willie Grimes at his trial. Willie spent the next 18 years exhausting appeals and trying to prove his innocence. Until his file savage into the easily of Chris Mumma and Kendra Montgomery-Blinn in 2006. It was through the development of the North Carolina Innocence Research Commission that Willie gained his freedom, six long years afterward. Information technology was through their exhaustive efforts and Dna - which had started to be used in trials in 1989, one yr after Willies conviction, that finally set him free and bedevilled the rightful assailant of the Carrie Elliott rape, Albert Turner. Many states have Innocence Projects now. Simply in 2012 there were only 97 people exonerated in the US. By 2015 there were over 1700 exonerated, with at least i in every state. By the time this volume was published in March of 2017 the number had passed 2000 and today exoneration'south are adding up weekly. Information technology is thought that many many innocent men and women accept be executed before their files could be studied and their evidence reevaluated. Between mistaken centre witness testimony, bad crime scene evaluation and evidence collecting, thousands of Deoxyribonucleic acid samples wasting abroad in evidence boxes, the total loss of evidence, bad police work, crooked police and prosecution, overworked or under experienced defense attorneys, the lack of money, and non having a good strong alibi anyone, absolutely anyone, tin can be arrested for a crime. That is scary. That is reality. Parts of this book read like a novel, parts were much more dry. You know going in that Willie Grimes was exonerated. However reading the facts of his story and trying to come to terms with him losing 24 years of his life kept yous reading. The fear that it could exist you or a loved one pushes you to try to glean every single possible thing from this volume that you can in hopes that if - if - it ever happens to you or to a loved one that yous will have some basis of understanding to assist guide and absolve yous from something you never even did.
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August 18, 2017
Library Biography #23 (My library shelves this equally a biography just I wouldn't put it in that category) This book is really a two-for-1. Rachlin tells the story of Willie Grimes, alternating chapters describe Chris Mumma'southward inception and germination of Northward Carolina's Innocence Enquiry Committee. At starting time, I did not like the alternating chapters, because neither story had anything to do with the other. As the book progresses, the reader is able to come across how both stories intertwine and and so get ane. Afterwards finishing the book, I do appreciate the author taking the arroyo that he did. The story of Willie Grimes is so unnerving. Not only is Grimes convicted of a crime that he did not commit, simply his treatment while incarcerated really perturbed me. Every chapter we here about how Grimes is continually transferred from one prison to the next, to which at that place is no explanation equally to why. He is barred from taking classes because he maintains his innocence. He is given points against his tape for such minor offenses - like having 2 portable radios because the concluding prison house allowed 2 and the new one only allowed one. Non to mention that he receives a life judgement for rape - which seems absurd when you consider many rapists receive extremely short sentences. When y'all larn that real offender was in and out of jail the entire time - he never sees a harsh judgement like the human they arrested for his offence. How does this even happen in the offset place? Although the website for the North Carolina Innocence Research Commission shows that they have only been able to bring about a dozen cases to consideration, and that peradventure half or and then of those have led to exoneration, I do believe that this sort of commission is necessary beyond the fifty states. The writer does non actually become into depth on what extent or what steps the different states have taken to this effect, it would accept been interesting to know progress from other states. It seems, at this bespeak, much of innocence work has fallen on the shoulders of interested Universities and Colleges. Very interesting read, much of the volume does comment on Ronald Cotton'southward case in North Carolina. I happen to own the book on his case and will be reading that next.
It is not often I read a book that is and so moving that I am fighting tears throughout. It is difficult to believe that the book is not fiction, as information technology is eye-breaking reading nearly all that Willie Grimes endured. Would highly recommend this volume.
The case of Willie Grimes is shocking, how he was ever convicted in the beginning place is beyond me! This book opens with the horrendous crime and speedily after follows the arrest of Grimes – I was gripped from the very offset folio! The treatment of Grimes in his arrest was bloodcurdling, the trial itself, and the testify presented (and not presented) was shocking, to the point where information technology'due south hard to believe this is a true story. With no legal training, you can come across from a mile off, this was a miscarriage of justice – you lot accept to read it to believe information technology, it was simply shocking and appalling. Incorporated throughout this book are brief looks at other people who were wrongfully convicted and wow, they are just as, if not more, shocking. So shocking it's scary – it seems you don't even have to exist in the area the offense was committed to be convicted of it, and the next thing you know, you're serving a life sentence! We can endeavour to seek comfort in the belief that wrongful convictions are rare, merely they're not as rare as you remember. Grimes would likely still be in prison if information technology were non for Chris Mumma's determination for justice that led to the cosmos of the North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Committee. At times, the parts of the book defended to the creation of this commission and the work Mumma and her colleagues did could exist a bit long winded. And if you're non familiar with how thing work in the US, eg. Senate and legal jargon, these bits may make slow reading. I fully empathize the importance of the piece of work being carried out but the information on forming the organisation was a bit heavy at times. There'southward no denying Willie Grimes and his quest for liberty is the center and soul of this volume. Every bit you read it, you abound to adore Willie, throughout it all, he held no ill will towards anyone, he just wanted to get habitation to his family. Reading about his feel in prison was a shock to my system, how can inmates be shipped from prison to prison house to prison, many times, placed too far from their friends and family to accept them visit. I e'er maintain that true crime stories are more chilling than any fiction, and Ghost of the Innocent Homo is proof of that. These miscarriages of justice are a chill you lot can't shake off – as I read more than of these books, I see a trend, these crimes happened so long ago but it's simply recently, within the last 10 years, that these wrongs are beingness righted. But you can't requite a human back 25 years of his life! If yous are interested in books about wrongful convictions and the workings [and failings] of the criminal justice arrangement, I recommend you lot read this book. *My cheers to the publisher (Little, Brown and Visitor) for granting me access to a digital copy of this book via Netgalley*
Ghost of the Innocent Human: A True Story of Trial and Redemption is both a very intimate story and the larger story of what tin can happen when Justice goes sideways. Using the rape conviction of Willie Grimes as both the focus to the example of properties of the larger story of the Justice system. These two threads of this wonderful book weave together a story of both horror and hope. How in one case the system convicts a person, exactly how difficult information technology could be to exonerate a truly innocent man. What the volume asks is how does an innocent human go bedevilled and how does the organization respond when he tries to exonerate himself. Flipping back and forth between what Willie Grime is experiencing and the larger story of trying to change an unwilling organization, the reader is given both a proficient look at the big picture without e'er losing the price paid by an innocent individual. Ghost of the Innocent Man: A Truthful Story of Trial and Redemption is both hopeful and tragic. There are good people trying their very all-time to prevent what happens and the tragic withal puts innocent people behind bars. Benjamin Rachlin does an fantabulous job of explaining how perplexing the overall system works despite efforts to prevent wrongful convictions. From starting time to cease, this is a human story with both the heartache of the wrongly convicted and the disability of the larger system not being able to admit to mistakes. He too does a yeoman's job of explaining how a fair trial is not what 1 expects and why post confidence relief is so rare. Ghost of the Innocent Human being: A True Story of Trial and Redemption is well worth the time and is an excellent read.
I'll be surprised if this book doesn't make it to the big screen some mean solar day considering it has honor-winning-Hollywood-movie written all over it. I've read a fair share of truthful offense stories revolving around bug with the criminal justice system and this book holds up very well with the balance; each volume I've read seems to highlight a unlike issue. Hither the story is mainly most weaknesses in the organization itself and how they were exacerbated by laziness (possibly greed) and system rigidity. (An excellent book that focuses on corruption and incompetence in a pocket-sized constabulary department is "Tulia" past Nate Blakeslee.) The prologue and opening affiliate expertly describe the crime and the trial. From there the writer introduces a parallel story and weaves the two in alternating capacity. I won't say more than to avoid spoiling the rest. Willie Grimes is the perfect guy to anchor a story most wrongful confidence. He's throughly likable and completely innocent (not a spoiler). I didn't e'er beloved the Chris Mumma chapters although she does deserve much praise. Likewise, some of the Willie Grimes chapters felt a niggling tiring for their repetitiveness merely the author's point may take been to tell the full story of his suffering and in that regard he succeeded. The author deserves credit for addressing the myriad points of view from various participants in the criminal justice system (largely in the Chris Mumma capacity) to give the reader a wide perspective. Later chapters highlight a victims' rights group. An first-class volume that I think was the first (or maybe i of the before books) to address the touch of violent crime on the victim and their family is "Victim" by Gary Kinder.
Injustices with a placidity behemothic, Willie J Grimes.
Unsettling on its revelations, informative on the history of injustices.
Will Grimes will stay with the reader for some time for his patience confronting the injustice.
This piece of work will have you ruminate on the ones that take been sentenced to death innocents unjustly lost.
They may be some respite in knowing Grimes was one of the lucky ones that was freed eventually.
The life to and fro from prison to prison, the inadequate representations and care, and lack of chances of parole despite the weak evidences against him.
The lack of proper due intendance or maybe even due respect to process evidences, all things preceding and afterward his arrest.
Race could come into this failure, just the lawyers representing him had two others, ii white males, who where also exonerated afterwards some time of incarceration also mentioned in this book in non and so much particular, this book is more nigh Grimes'southward sphere.
Various chapters walk the world around Grimes, his incarceration, his poverty and the pursuit of truth and freedom.
There is as well some telling on how the North Carolina'southward Innocence Inquiry Commission was formed and its beginning few successful exonerations which started the cogs working for some justice upon a function of this earth.
A well done representation and informative investigative writing on a tragic example of innocent charged as guilty.
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