Jim McCloskey: Founder of Centurion Ministries and father of the innocence movement

Today there are dozens of innocence organizations but Centurion Ministries was the first one. Jim was the father of the entire innocence movement.

He learned first-hand early on the unreliability of eyewitness testimony.

He was able to leverage his consulting background piecing together market research to figure out how to solve these wrongful convictions.

Building a relationship and rapport with key witnesses was just as vital to proving these cases and Jim had a natural ability in that regard.

Not every case would work out. He sometimes had false positives – clients he was trying to help who he later learned were actually guilty. When that happens, it’s important to just admit the mistake and move on.

“This is a story of how I learned what a cruel, mindless, mean machine the justice system can be. How, in trying to combat evil in the world, the system can become just as evil - more so, because it is evil done in the name of all of us.”

To date, Centurion Ministries has freed 64 innocent men and women who collectively had spent 1,350 years behind bars.

“Excellence is doing what you feel is right for you given your personality and makeup.”