Grisham pens a real life courtroom drama
The Innocent Man
By John Grisham
Doubleday $28.95 hardbound
By BILL DUNCAN
The News-Review
If you thought John Grisham’s fictional courtroom drama kept you turning pages, then you are in for a real life courtroom drama in his newest book, a true account of a man sitting on death row in Oklahoma for a murder of which he was innocent. The book will make you take a second look at the judicial system.
This is not the first time Grisham, one of the world’s best selling novelists, has wandered from his fictional courtroom drama and ventured into nonfiction, but it is the first real life courtroom drama from his prolific pen. It is the true story of Ron Williamson, an Ada, Okla. baseball star who made it to the big leagues, only to be a fallen star, a fate he could never accept.
It was that athletic ego that led him to start drinking in sleazy bars around Ada and eventually be accused of raping and murdering a 21-year-old woman he met in one of the bars. Before his fall from stardom, he had been drafted by the Oakland A’s professional baseball team and was climbing up the pro ball ladder to join the likes of Reggie Jackson, Vida Blue, Catfish Hunter, Rollie Fingers and Tony LaRussa, all members of the A’s team in the early 1970s when Williamson signed his contract with the pros at age 19.
As a rookie he was assigned to the Northwest Class A league known as the Coos Bay-North Bend Athletics where he had 41 hits in 155 bats for an unimpressive average of .265. He was catcher for 46 games and played a few innings in center field. It was a far cry from Oakland, even after he was reassigned to a Class A farm team in Burlington, Iowa, a step nearer to Oakland.
He never made it to the Oakland team. He was picked up by the Yankees as a pitcher, but that lasted just a few games before he was cut and he waited patiently back in Ada for his call to the pros. He struggled with an image problem and got in and out of scrapes with the law. When Debra Sue Carter, the young woman he had met in a bar, is found brutally raped and murdered, he becomes a suspect, but police didn’t have evidence to tie him to the crime.
The two police officers, Dennis Smith and Gary Rogers, who investigated the murder never stopped believing Williamson had committed the murder and worked toward his arrest for eight years. They eventually convinced Ada District Attorney Bill Peterson that Williamson and a friend, Dennis Fritz, had committed the murder.
The evidence wasn’t any stronger than when the two detectives first considered Williamson a suspect, but they relied on a town anxious to solve the murder. The evidence against Williamson and Fritz was almost totally circumstantial. Grisham, himself a lawyer, points to all the judicial errors on the part of the investigators, the prosecutor and the judge in trying the two men.
A jury, inflamed by the horrific photos at the murder scene, convicts the two defendants. Williamson is given the death penalty. Fritz is given a life sentence. From that point in the book Grisham is at his best revealing to the reader the layers upon layers of judicial misconduct in the conviction and imprisonment of Ron Williamson and Dennis Fritz.
Appeal after appeal is denied. The U.S. Supreme Court twice refused to review the case. It wasn’t until a group called Innocent Project agreed to take the case and file a habeas corpus writ that found its way to the desk of Frank H. Seay, United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Oklahoma, did the case get a true judicial review.
Judge Seay ordered a new trial for both Williamson and Fritz. Peterson fought the retrial even though DNA evidence exonerated both men. He put on a defiant last effort to block freeing the two men, even though his witnesses testified DNA excluded them. Peterson explained to the court Williamson and Fritz had been convicted in 1988 "by evidence that was, in my opinion, at that particular time, overwhelming."
He said based on the evidence he had left, he could not prosecute the two defendants and asked that a dismissal be granted. Never once, according to Grisham’s book, did Peterson "offer any conciliatory comments, or words of regret, or admissions of errors made, or even an apology."
At the end of the book, Grisham tells how he got interested in writing the book when he read Ron Williamson’s obituary in The New York Times. Up to that time, he admits, he had never heard of Ron Williamson or Dennis Fritz. "Writing nonfiction had crossed my mind and I had no idea what I was getting into. The story and the research and the writing of it, consumed the next eighteen months."
The story he tells is true and if you believe that in America you are innocent until proven guilty, this book will make you think otherwise. In fact, if you believe the criminal justice system is fair, this book may change your mind.
(Bill Duncan is editor of The Senior Times. He writes a weekly column on the Thursday Opinion Page of The News-Review.)
January 14th, 2007 at 2:28 pm
Who And Where Is Dennis Fritz, You say after reading John Grisham’s Book “The Innocent man”, Grisham’s First non-fiction book. The Other Innocent Man hardly mentioned in “The Innocent Man” has his own compelling and fascinating story to tell in “Journey Toward Justice”. John Grisham endorsed Dennis Fritz’s Book on the Front Cover.
Dennis Fritz wrote his Book Published by Seven Locks Press, to bring awareness about False Convictions, and The Death Penalty. “Journey Toward Justice” is a testimony to the Triumph of the Human Spirit and is a Stunning and Shocking Memoir. Dennis Fritz was wrongfully convicted of murder after a swift trail. The only thing that saved him from the Death Penalty was a lone vote from a juror. “The Innocent Man” by John Grisham is all about Ronnie Williamson, Dennis Fritz’s was his co-defendant. Ronnie Williamson was sentenced to the Death Penalty. Both were exonerated after spending 12 years in prison. They were set free because of a simple DNA test. The real killer was one of the Prosecution’s Key Witness. John Grisham’s “The Innocent Man” tells half the story. Dennis Fritz’s Story needs to be heard. Read about how he wrote hundreds of letters and appellate briefs in his own defense and immersed himself in an intense study of law. He was a school teacher and a ordinary man from Ada Oklahoma, whose wife was brutally murdered in 1975.
On May 8, 1987 while raising his young daughter alone, he was put under arrest and on his way to jail on charges of rape and murder. Since then, it has been a long hard road filled with twist and turns. Dennis Fritz is now on his “Journey Toward Justice”.
He never blamed the Lord and soley relied on his faith in God to make it through. He waited for God’s time and never gave up.
Sincerely,
Barbara
February 16th, 2007 at 6:06 pm
http://billpetersondistrictattorney.com