During the summer of 1984, Calvin Johnson crawls knee-deep in a swamp in the wetlands of South Georgia. As snakes graze his legs, he marches in line with nine more men, each dressed in an orange jumpsuit, swinging a razor-sharp ax in collective rhythm. His crew entered the swamp at dawn and won't leave until dusk. The guards, armed with rifles and with equally violent tempers, ignore the fact that the temperature has risen well above 100 degrees and push the men even further. Suddenly, an orange blur falls to the ground and a prisoner from Wayne Correctional Institution lies face down on the swampy floor. As the guards give orders to the unconscious, dying man, Johnson realizes that "the truth of the situation is that the force of injustice incapacitates him." That's when he decides he doesn't belong in the swamp. Calvin Johnson (along with co-writer Greg Hampikian) begins his memoir, Exit to Freedom (The University of Georgia Press; 2003), with this dehumanizing description of prison life. He finds himself in this situation a year after being wrongly convicted of raping a woman in Clayton, Georgia. His story, the self-proclaimed "only first-hand account of a wrongful conviction overturned by DNA evidence," soon leaves the swamp and takes the reader inside the prison itself. The "prison code of etiquette" is told through adages such as "never get between fighting dogs" and "only the dead broke up fights, and only spies spoke to the guards." These prison proverbs are supported by anecdotes of brutal fights , broken prison rules and punishments, such as a lawbreaker who is brutally stabbed in his sleep. Characters such as Lefty, a prisoner who reports a fight by removing his glass eye and placing it on the sink, ... in the center of the paper ... the reasoning. what lies behind this soon becomes apparent As Johnson talks more and more about his gradual estrangement from God, I realize that I am preparing for a miracle. I was a little surprised when I realized that the entire book is a Christian testimony , following the familiar pattern: man experiences trials, man denies God, man finds God. The focus on spirituality overshadows the cold case study and hard facts DNA evidence the reader expects. Even so, the sheer strength of Johnson's story overcomes its narrative flaws and keeps the reader interested throughout. Furthermore, the sincerity of his Christian beliefs adds an entirely different layer to his compelling story of a man not only finding the truth in the legal system, but also discovering a spiritual truth that guides him out of the darkness of captivity, freeing his mind, body and soul.