Framed by John Grisham and Jim McCloskey

Framed by John Grisham and Jim McCloskey is a solid nonfiction work with ten stories of wrongful arrest, conviction, and imprisonment, with five by each man. McCloskey works with Centurion Ministries, a group dedicated to exonerating innocent people wrongly convicted, and Grisham is on the board of directors of both Centurion and the Innocence Project. There are twenty-three defendants across the ten wrongful conviction stories, with four that were on death row, two who came within days of being executed, and one who was. 

Three of the stories to highlight are that of Todd Willingham, Joe Bryan, and the Norfolk Four. Willingham was put to death by the state of Texas for the house fire that took the lives of his three children, examined by David Grann for The New Yorker with the piece "Trial by Fire: Did Texas Execute an Innocent Man?" Joe Bryan was arrested for the murder of his wife Mickey in Clifton, Texas, where Joe was a principal, away at a conference at the time of the murder. The Norfolk Four features police concocting stories of what they believe happened, and then fitting evidence that fits their theories, ignoring evidence that disproves them. As new evidence would come to light disproving a police theory in the case, they would arrest another as an accomplice, and create a new theory. Then once that theory was disproved, they would arrest another purported co-conspirator and create a new made-up narrative. 

Police in these cases were often desperate to show their small towns that the killer not at large, and other examples of shoddy, malicious, or illegal police work included the following...

- Long interrogations and convincing people that maybe they did commit the crimes while sleepwalking. 

- Medical examiners who seem to specialize in autopsies that tell whatever story police want to be told.

- Jailhouse informants put in as cellmates for the purpose of them "hearing a confession."

- Hiding of evidence, that which was legally required to make available to the defense.

- Relying on shoddy work around areas like bloodstain analysis or fire investigation.

The stories of police misconduct in the ten stories are horrifying, and illustrate the importance of people asserting their Miranda rights so they not interviewed without a lawyer present.