John Grisham - The Innocent Man

Working independently, but also quietly working together, they filed a truckload of motions and soon had the district attorney's office scrambling. On June 11, Judge Miller called a hearing on issues raised by both the state and the defense. Barney was demanding a list of the names of all the witnesses the prosecution expected to use in the case. Oklahoma law required such disclosure, but Bill Peterson was having trouble with the statute. Barney explained it to him. The prosecutor wanted to disclose only those witnesses he planned to use at the preliminary hearing. Not so, said Judge Miller, and Peterson was ordered to timely notify the defense of any new witness.

Barney was in a feisty mood and prevailed on most of the motions. He was also showing signs of frustration. In one aside, he commented on being court appointed and not wanting to spend too much time on the case. He vowed to do a proper job, but was worried about getting consumed with his first capital murder trial.

The following day he filed a motion requesting additional counsel for Ron. The state did not object, and on June 16 Frank Baber was appointed by Judge Miller to help Barney. The legal wrangling and paperwork battles continued as both sides prepared for the preliminary hearing.

Dennis Fritz was placed in a cell not far from Ron Williamson. He couldn't see Ron, but he could certainly hear him. When he wasn't over-medicated, Ron yelled constantly. For hours, he would stand at the bars in his cell door and bellow over and over, "I am innocent. I am innocent." His deep and husky voice echoed through the cramped building. He was a wounded animal, in a cage, in dire need of help. The prisoners were stressed anyway, but Ron's screeching voice added another thick layer of anxiety. Other inmates would yell back at him and taunt him about killing Debbie Carter. The bickering and cursing back and forth were occasionally amusing but generally nerve-racking. The jailers moved Ron from his isolation cell into a bullpen with a dozen others, an arrangement that proved disastrous. The men had little privacy and practically lived shoulder to shoulder. Ron respected no one's space. A petition quickly appeared. It was signed by the other prisoners and begged the jailers to take Ron back to isolation. To prevent a riot or a killing, the guards agreed.

Then there were long periods of silence, and everyone, inmates and guards, would breathe easier. Soon the entire jail knew that either John Christian was on duty or the guards had given Ron another toxic dose of Thorazine.

The Thorazine quieted him, though at times there were other side effects. It often made his legs itch, and the "Thorazine shuffle" became part of the jail's routine as Ron stood at the bars of his cell and ducked and weaved from side to side for hours.

Fritz would talk to him and try to calm him, but it was hopeless. Ron's cries of innocence were painful to hear, especially for Dennis, who knew him best. It was obvious that Ron needed much more than a bottle of pills.

Neuroleptic drugs are synonymous with tranquilizers and antipsy-chotics, and are used primarily on schizophrenics. Thorazine is a neuroleptic, and it has a tortured history. In the 1950s it began flooding state mental hospitals. It's a potent drug that strongly reduces awareness and interest. Psychiatrists who support the drug claim it actually cures the patient by altering or repairing bad brain chemistry.

But critics, who greatly outnumber supporters, cite numerous studies that show the drug to produce a long, frightening list of side effects. Sedation, drowsiness, lethargy, poor concentration, nightmares, emotional difficulties, depression, despair, lack of spontaneous interest in the surroundings, a blunting or dulling of the patient's awareness and motor control. Thorazine is toxic to most brain functions and disrupts nearly all of them.

Its harshest critics have called it "nothing more than a chemical lobotomy." They claim that the only real purpose of Thorazine is to save money for mental institutions and prisons and to make patients and inmates more manageable.

Ron's Thorazine was doled out by his jailers, sometimes with instructions from his lawyer. Often, though, there was no supervision. He got a pill when he got too loud. Even though Dennis Fritz had remained in Ada for four years after the murder, he was considered an escape risk. Like Ron's, his bail was exorbitant and out of the question. Like all defendants, they were presumed to be innocent, but nonetheless kept in jail so they wouldn't flee or be loose on the streets killing others.

Presumed innocent, but they would wait almost a year until they went to trial.

A few days after Dennis arrived at the jail, a man by the name of Mike Tenney suddenly appeared outside his cell. Fat and balding and not well spoken, Tenney nonetheless had a big smile and a friendly manner, and he treated Dennis like an old friend. And he desperately wanted to talk about the Carter murder.

Dennis had been around Ada long enough to know the jail was a cesspool of snitches, liars, and cutthroats, and he knew that any conversation with anyone could very well be repeated in a courtroom in a version slanted sharply against the person on trial. Every inmate, guard, cop, trustee, janitor, cook, everyone was a potential snitch, anxious to pick up details and then retail the information to cops.

Tenney said he was new to the place and claimed to be a jailer, but in fact he was not yet on the county's payroll. Though unsolicited, and certainly not based on knowledge or experience, Tenney had plenty of advice for Dennis. In his opinion, Dennis was in deep trouble, staring at an execution, and the best way to save his skin was to come clean, confess, cut a deal with Peterson over at the D.A.'s office, and give up the dirt on Ron Williamson.

Peterson would be fair. Dennis just listened.

Tenney wouldn't go away. He returned every day, shaking his head gravely at Dennis's predicament, babbling on about the system and how he thought it operated, giving sage advice that was absolutely free.

Dennis just listened.

A preliminary hearing was scheduled for July 20, before Judge John David Miller. Like in most jurisdictions, preliminaries were crucial in Oklahoma because the state was required to play its hand, to show the court and everyone else who its witnesses would be and what they would say.

The challenge for a prosecutor at a preliminary was to show just enough evidence to convince the judge that there were reasonable grounds that the defendant was guilty while not yet revealing everything to the defense. It was gamesmanship, with a bit of risk. Normally, though, a prosecutor had little to worry about. Local judges find it hard to get reelected if they dismiss criminal charges.

But with such flimsy evidence against both Fritz and Williamson, Bill Peterson had to push hard at the preliminary. He had so little to offer that he could certainly hold nothing back. And the local newspaper would be there, anxious to report every word. Three months after its publication, The Dreams ofAda was still being hotly debated around town. The preliminary hearing would be Peterson's first performance in a major trial since the book came out.

A nice crowd gathered in the courtroom. Dennis Fritz's mother was there, as were Annette Hudson and Renee Simmons. Peggy Stillwell, Charlie Carter, and their two daughters arrived early. The regulars-bored lawyers, local gossips, idle clerks, retirees with nothing to do-waited for their first good look at the two murderers. The trial was months away, but the live testimony was about to be heard.

Before the hearing, and just for the sheer fun of it, the Ada police informed Ron that Dennis Fritz had finally made a full confession that implicated both of them in the rape and murder. The shocking news sent Ron off the deep end.