John Grisham - The Innocent Man

"No, I don't want to be here."

"And you understand that you have the right to be here and listen to all the witnesses' testimony?"

"I don't want to be here. Whatever you all do I can't help it. I'm tired of being crazy about this. It's suffered me so much; I just don't want to be here."

"Okay, and that's your decision. You do not wish to be present?" "That's correct."

"And you're waiving your right to confront witnesses by doing that under the

Constitution?"

"Yes I am. You all can charge me on something I didn't do. You all can do anything you want to do." Ron then looked at Gary Rogers and said, "You scare me, Gary. You can charge me after four and a half years of harassing me, sir, you all can go at it because you all is the ones in control, not me."

Ron was taken back to jail, and the hearing resumed with the testimony of Dennis Smith. Gary Rogers followed with a tedious narrative of the investigation, then OSBI agents Melvin Hett and Mary Long testified about the forensics involved in the case- fingerprints, hair analysis, and the components in blood and saliva.

After the state rested its case, Barney called ten witnesses-all jailers or former trustees.

Not a one recalled hearing anything vaguely similar to what Terri Holland claimed she heard.

When the testimony was over, Barney and Greg Saunders asked the court to dismiss the rape charges because they had not been brought within three years of the crime, as required by Oklahoma law. Murder has no statute of limitations, but all other crimes do. Judge Miller said he would rule on the motion at a later date.

Almost lost in the shuffle was Dennis Fritz. The focus of Peterson's prosecution was obviously Ron Williamson, and his star witnesses-Gore, Terri Holland, Gary Rogers (with the dream confession)-all testified against Ron. The only proof that remotely tied Fritz to the murder was the hair analysis testimony of Melvin Hett.

Greg Saunders argued long and hard that the state had not met its burden of proving probable cause that Dennis Fritz was connected to the killing. Judge Miller took the matter under advisement.

Barney joined in the fray with a noisy motion to dismiss all charges because of such light evidence, and Greg followed suit. When Judge Miller didn't issue a ruling immediately, when it became apparent he was actually considering the merits of the defense motions, the police and prosecutors realized they needed more evidence.

Scientific experts carry great weight with juries, especially in small towns, and when the experts are employees of the state and called by the prosecution to testify against criminal defendants, their opinions are deemed infallible.

Barney and Greg Saunders knew the hair and fingerprint testimony from the OSBI crowd was suspect, but they needed some help to dispute it. They would be allowed to crossexamine the state's experts and attempt to discredit them, but they also knew that lawyers rarely win such arguments. Experts are hard to pin down, and jurors are quickly confused. What the defense needed was an expert or two at its table. They filed a motion requesting such assistance. Such motions were commonly made but rarely granted. Experts cost money, and many local officials, including judges, cringed at the idea of forcing the taxpayers to cover the bill for an indigent defense that ran too high. The motion was argued. Left unsaid was the fact that Barney was blind. If anyone needed help in analyzing hair fibers and fingerprints, it was Barney Ward.

The paperwork flew back and forth. The D.A.'s office amended the charges and dropped the rapes. The defense lawyers attacked the new indictment. Another hearing was needed.

The district court judge was Ronald Jones from Pontotoc County, which, along with Seminole and Hughes, comprised the Twenty-second Judicial District. Judge Jones was elected in 1982 and, not surprisingly, was known to be pro-prosecution and tough on defendants. He believed strongly in the death penalty. He was a devout Christian, a Baptist deacon whose nicknames included Ron the Baptist and By-the-Book Jones. He did, though, have a weakness for jailhouse conversions, and some defense lawyers quietly advised their clients that a sudden interest in finding the Lord might prove beneficial when facing Judge Jones.

On August 20, Ron, unrepentant, was brought before him for an arraignment, the first time the two met in court. Judge Jones spoke to Ron and asked him how he was doing.

He got an earful.

"I have one thing to say, sir," Ron began loudly. "This-I feel strongly for the Carter family, as much as their kinfolks." Judge Jones asked for silence.

Ron continued, "Sir, I know that you don't want-I, I didn't do this, sir."

The guards squeezed him and he shut up. The arraignment was postponed so Judge Jones could review the transcript from the preliminary hearing.

Two weeks later Ron was back with more motions by his lawyers. The jailers had fine tuned the Thorazine. When Ron was in his cell and they wanted peace, they pumped him full and everybody was happy. But when he was scheduled to be in court, they reduced the dosage so he would appear louder, more intense, more belligerent. Norma Walker at Mental Health Services suspected the jailers were juicing Ron and made a note in her file. The second appearance before Judge Jones did not go well. Ron was outspoken. He professed his innocence, claimed people were telling lies about him, and at one point said, "Mother knew I was at home that night."

He was eventually returned to the jail, and the hearing continued. Barney Ward and Greg Saunders had requested separate trials, and they pressed hard on this issue. Saunders especially wanted his own jury without the baggage of a co-defendant like Ron Williamson.

Judge Jones agreed and ordered separate trials. He also broached the issue of Ron's mental competency, telling Barney in court that the matter needed to be dealt with before the trial. Ron was finally arraigned, entered a formal plea of not guilty, and went back to jail.

The Fritz case was now on a different track. Judge Jones had ordered a new preliminary hearing because the state had presented so little evidence against Dennis at the first one. The authorities didn't have enough witnesses.

Normally, a prosecution with no hard evidence would worry the police, but not in Ada. No one panicked. The Pontotoc County jail was full of potential snitches. The first one they found for Dennis Fritz was a career petty criminal named Cindy Mclntosh.

Dennis had been strategically moved to a cell closer to Ron so the two could talk. Their feud was over; Dennis had convinced him that he had not confessed. Cindy Mclntosh claimed she got close enough to hear the two talk, then notified the police that she had the goods. According to Mclntosh, Fritz and Williamson discussed some photographs submitted during the first preliminary hearing. Ron wasn't there, of course, and he was curious about what Dennis had seen. The photos were of the crime scene, and Ron asked Dennis, "Was she [Debbie Carter] on the bed or on the floor?"

The floor, Dennis replied.

This, to the police, was clear proof that both men were in the apartment and committed the rape and murder.

Bill Peterson was quickly convinced. On September 22, he filed a motion to add Cindy Mclntosh as a witness for the state.

The next snitch was James Riggins, though his career as such was short-lived. Hauled back from prison to face charges in Pontotoc County, Riggins was being returned to his cell one night when he passed another cell. Inside, he heard someone, perhaps Ron, admitting that he killed Debbie Carter, that he had two rape charges up in Tulsa, and that he would beat the murder rap just like he'd walked on the rapes. Riggins wasn't clear who Ron was doing all this confessing to, but in the snitching world such details were not important.