Virtual Book Club: When The Truth Is All You Have

JOIN MEETING: bit.ly/2Xz8J0p

Join Chagrin Arts, The Ohio Innocence Project, Dayton Legal Heritage Foundation, John Carroll University, Xavier University, Ohio Arts Council, and the University of Dayton in a virtual book club on February 9th at 6 pm of the book “When Truth is All You Have: A Memoir of Faith, Justice, and Freedom for the Wrongly Convicted” by Jim McCloskey with a foreword by John Grisham. Read the book if possible and join to weigh in or listen to a discussion on the topic!

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WHEN TRUTH IS ALL YOU HAVE is a riveting story of devotion, sacrifice, and vindication from the founder of America’s first organization committed to freeing the wrongly imprisoned. Jim McCloskey was at a midlife crossroads when he met the man who would transform his life. A Bronze Star Medal-awarded U.S. Navy veteran (Vietnam, 1966-1967) turned management consultant, McCloskey had grown disenchanted with the business world and had hit a personal rock bottom. So in 1979, at the age of 37, he enrolled at Princeton Theological Seminary. His first assignment was as a chaplain at Trenton State Prison, where he ministered to some of the most violent offenders in New Jersey. Among them was Jorge de los Santos, a heroin addict who’d been convicted of murder years earlier but swore his innocence. With no legal or investigative training to speak of—just an unshakeable belief in the man’s innocence—McCloskey threw himself into the case. Two years later, he successfully affected

his exoneration. McCloskey had found his calling. In 1983, he established Centurion Ministries, the first group in America devoted to overturning wrongful convictions. Together with a team of forensic experts, lawyers, and volunteers,

Centurion has freed 63 prisoners (and counting) men and women who had been sentenced to life in prison or to

death for the crimes of others.

WHEN TRUTH IS ALL YOU HAVE tells McCloskey’s own story as well as those of the unjustly imprisoned for whom he has advocated. With a foreword by John Grisham—who took inspiration from McCloskey’s life in crafting his recent novel, The Guardians, about a minister-turned-prisoner-advocate—it is a candid and compassionate chronicle of faith and doubt, triumphant success and shattering failure, an unflagging dedication to justice.