Freeing David McCallum: The Last Miracle of Rubin "Hurricane" Carter

by Ken Klonsky

Overview

For ten years before Rubin “Hurricane” Carter’s death, he and his friend and coauthor Ken Klonsky had been working to help free another wrongfully convicted man, David McCallum. McCallum was eventually exonerated and freed after serving twenty-nine years in prison. This is the story of how Carter and Klonsky, along with a group of committed friends and professionals, managed to secure McCallum’s release. It details their many struggles, from founding an innocence project to take on the case, finding lawyers willing to work pro bono, and hiring a private detective to sift through old evidence and locate original witnesses, to the most difficult part: convincing members of a deeply flawed criminal justice system to reopen a case that would expose their own mistakes when all they wanted to do was ignore the conflicting evidence. A new district attorney willing to reexamine the case, a documentary film, and an op-ed piece in which Carter, on his deathbed, made a plea for McCallum’s release finally turned the tide of justice. 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781613737934
Publisher:	Chicago Review Press, Incorporated
Publication date:	10/01/2017
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

CA

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

1 Rubin Carter: The Hurricane 7

2 David McCallum: The Prisoner 20

3 Oscar Michelen: The Lawyer 44

4 Steve Drizin: The False Confessions Expert 66

5 Ray Klonsky: The Brother and the Son 85

6 Chrissie Owens: The Witness 105

7 Laura Cohen: The Parole Resource 120

8 I, Poltergeist 147

9 Mr. DNA: The Suspect 170

10 Marvin Schechter: The Gadfly 193

11 Van Padgett: The PI 214

12 Ken Thompson: The District Attorney 241

Epilogue 271

Acknowledgments 273

Appendix: Contrasting False Confessions 275

Key Figures 285

Index 289

Editorial Reviews

"After you read this gripping tale of a Brooklyn teenager coerced into falsely confessing and freed nearly thirty years later, you will not think about confession evidence or criminal investigations the same way.” —Brandon L. Garrett, author of End of Its Rope: How Killing the Death Penalty Can Revive Criminal Justice and Convicting the Innocent: Where Criminal Prosecutions Go Wrong



“I was the judge who granted a writ of habeas corpus to Rubin ‘Hurricane’ Carter resulting in his freedom after serving nineteen years in prison for a wrongful conviction. After his release we became friends, and he often spoke of his commitment to obtain the release of David McCallum. Freeing David McCallum is the compelling true story of the exoneration of another man wrongly convicted. His miraculous release, after twenty-nine years, demonstrates that fortunately there are those among us who will devote themselves unsparingly to freeing the innocent.” —Judge H. Lee Sarokin, retired

From the Publisher