In April 2014, Rubin “Hurricane” Carter died after a long battle with cancer. David McCallum was exonerated and freed two months later, after serving 29 years in prison. This is the story of how Carter and his friend and coauthor Ken Klonsky worked for ten years to help free the wrongfully convicted McCallum. It details their struggles—from founding an innocence project, to finding lawyers willing to work pro bono, to hiring a private detective to sift through old evidence and locate original witnesses, and the most difficult part, convincing members of a deeply flawed criminal justice system to reopen a case that would expose their own mistakes. It eventually took a new district attorney, a documentary film, and a New York Daily News op-ed written by Carter on his death bed to secure justice. Freeing David McCallum tells a tale of frustration, agony, and undying hope, and the miracle that resulted in David’s release.
