John Grisham's, The Innocent Man, displays a well-written novel of a small town hero that was crushed by our society and all his dreams came to a crashing halt. This is the first non-fiction novel that has been written by John Grisham. This account of a baseball player that was wrong-fully accused of rape and murder in 1988 well demonstrates the injustice in today's government and form of punishing people. Ron Williamson, the accused murderer served the death sentence before this book was published. Ron Williamson's mother, wrote this book in memory of Ron and in order to get the word out to the American public that Ron Williams was wrongfully accused and did serve the ultimate punishment, the death penalty. Ron Williamson has spent 11 years on Oklahoma's death row before there were enough DNA advancements that could prove his innocence for this case.
This book well demonstrates all the errors that were found in Ron Williamson's case. Ron Williamson's case consisted of coercion, false witness, and examples of over-looked and suppressed evidence. Ron Williamson was convicted under circumstantial evidence and false witness and sentenced to death. This book that John Grisham has written makes every American doubt the form of our government and of our criminal justice system because this is only one of the many cases that has charged an innocent man with a crime. The author of this book, John Grisham writes this book as if you are experiencing this happening to yourself or you are a very close friend with Ron. John Grisham gives all the small details from Ron's case and demonstrates how the criminal justice system works. The middle of the book does become a little draggy only because this novel is so long and filled with many important facts that affect the outcome of the case.
John Grisham did something in this book that very few authors can portray in their writings. Grisham described the horrid conditions in which Ron had to serve his time in jail and how the guards disrespectfully treated Ron and how they tormented him while he was on death row. Grisham allows the reader to see Ron as he changed and as he gets himself deeper into the madness that has come out of this false accusation. Any person that is put in this situation accused of a crime they did not commit and put on death row after no substantial evidence then tormented by the prison guards then this would persuade most people's mind that they did something wrong and maybe this person would even go on with their lives believing that they really do deserve this sentence.
John Grisham's style portrays an un-biased attitude to the life and criminal charges that were brought against Ron Williamson's case. He specifically adds in the small details to allow the reader to gain their own opinion about who the actual murderer in this case was. The end of the book was well written; John Grisham wraps everything back up and goes over the major details that actually change the outcome of this case. Grisham shows the reader the advances in the technology that help the reader understand why the outcome has changed due to the now available technology and also explain why Ron Williamson was actually not guilty. John Grisham wraps it up because his style puts some blame on the injustice in today's government and criminal justice system.