John Grisham - The Innocent Man

No one was injured. No charges were filed. No one was ever convicted.

But to Bill Peterson, the incident was clear proof that Dennis Fritz was an ongoing threat to society and should be put to death to protect other young ladies. Lavita Brewer was the best, and only, witness he could produce.

During his impassioned plea for death to the jury, Peterson looked at Dennis, pointed his finger, and said, "Dennis Fritz, you deserve to die for what you and Ron Williamson did to Debra Sue Carter."

To which Dennis interrupted and said to the jury, "I did not kill Debbie Carter." Two hours later, the jury returned with a sentence of life in prison. When the verdict was read, Dennis stood, faced the jury, and said, "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I would just like to say… "

"Excuse me," said Judge Jones.

"Dennis, you can't do that," Greg Saunders said.

But Dennis was not to be denied. He continued: "My Lord, Jesus in heaven knows I didn't do this. I just want you to know that I forgive you. I'll be praying for you." Back in his cell, in the muggy darkness of his little corner of hell, he found no relief whatsoever in the fact that he had avoided a death sentence. He was thirty-eight years old, an innocent man without a violent tendency in his being, and the prospect of spending the rest of his life in prison was utterly overwhelming.

Annette Hudson had closely followed the Fritz trial by reading the daily reports in the Ada Evening News. On Tuesday, April 12, the front-page headline read, "Fritz Found Guilty in Carter Murder."

As usual, the story mentioned her brother. "Ron Williamson, who is also charged with first degree murder in Carter's murder, is scheduled to be tried here on April 21." In fact, all six articles covering the Fritz trial mentioned Ron's involvement and upcoming trial. How do they expect to find an impartial jury? Annette asked herself repeatedly. If one codefendant is found guilty, how could the other one get a fair trial in the same town?

She bought Ron a new gray suit, an extra pair of navy slacks, two white shirts, two ties, and new shoes.

On April 20, the day before his trial began, Ron was taken to court for a chat with Judge Jones. The judge was worried that the defendant might be disruptive, a valid concern given his history. As Ron stood before the bench, the judge said, "I want to see where we stand on your attendance tomorrow and make sure that when you're here that there won't be any disturbances. Do you understand my concern?"

Ron: "As long as they don't start telling me that I've killed somebody."

Judge Jones: "Well, you understand that they're going to do that?"

Ron: "Well, I understand that, but it's not right." Judge Jones knew that Ron had been a great athlete, so he used the analogy of a sports contest. "It's kind of like a sporting event as far as the adversary process. Each side has an opportunity to be on offense, and they have the opportunity to be on defense, but you can't take issue with the fact that each side gets these opportunities. That's just part of the process."

Ron: "Yeah, but I'm the football being kicked."

For the prosecution, the Fritz trial was a nice warm-up for the main event. Virtually the same witnesses would be used, and in much the same order. But in the next trial, the state had two additional advantages. First, the defendant was mentally incompetent and prone to knock over tables and blurt out obscenities, behavior that most people, including jurors, frowned on. He could be eerily frightening; he scared people. Second, his lawyer was blind, and alone. Since the court-appointed cocounsel, Baber, had withdrawn from the case April 1, there had been no replacement. Barney was quick on his feet and a great cross-examiner, but not effective arguing over fingerprints, photographs, and hair analysis. For the defense, the trial couldn't start soon enough. Barney was sick of Ron Williamson and frustrated with the sheer number of hours the case was draining away from his other, paying clients. And he was afraid of Ron, physically afraid. He arranged to have his son, not a lawyer, sit closely behind Ron at the defense table. Barney planned to sit as far away as possible, which wasn't far at all, and if Ron made a sudden aggressive move on Barney, then his son was to jump Ron from the rear and take him down.

Such was the level of trust between lawyer and client.

But few people in the packed courtroom on April 21 realized that the son was protecting the father from the client. Most of those present were potential jurors, strangers to such settings and uncertain as to who was who. There were also reporters, curious lawyers, and the usual assortment of gossips that trials in small towns attract. Especially murder trials.

Annette Hudson and Renee Simmons sat in the front row, as close to Ronnie as possible. Several of Annette's close friends had volunteered to sit with her throughout the trial and offer support. She declined. Her brother was sick and unpredictable, and she didn't want her friends to see him in cuffs and shackles. Nor did she want them subjected to explicit and gruesome testimony. She and Renee had suffered through the preliminary hearing and gotten a strong taste of what was coming at trial.

There were no friends there for Ron.

Across the aisle the Carter family held down the front row, the same place they'd been during the Fritz trial. The opposing sides tried not to make eye contact. It was a Thursday, almost a full year after the exhumation of the victim's body and the arrests of Ron and Dennis. Ron's last significant treatment had been at Central State some thirteen months earlier. At Barney's request, he'd been seen once by Norma Walker in Ada, a brief visit that began and ended like most of his visits to the local clinic. For a year his medications, when he received any at all, had been erratically dispensed by the jailers. The time spent in his solitary hole in the jail had done nothing to improve his mental health.

Yet his mental health concerned no one but his family. Neither the prosecution, the defense, nor the court itself had raised the issue.

It was time for a trial.

The excitement of opening day quickly wore off as the tedium of jury selection hit hard. Hours passed as the lawyers questioned the pool and Judge Jones methodically dismissed one after the other.

Ron, for his part, behaved himself. He looked nice-a haircut, a shave, new clothes. He took pages of notes, all under the eyes of Barney's son, who, though as bored as the others, managed to keep an eye on the client. Ron had no idea why he was being watched so closely.

Late in the afternoon, the final twelve were chosen-seven men, five women, all white. Judge Jones gave them their instructions and sent them home. They would not be sequestered.

Annette and Renee were hopeful. One juror was the son-in-law of a neighbor who lived across the street from Annette. Another was related to a Pentecostal preacher who, surely, knew of Juanita Williamson and her devotion to her church. Another was a distant cousin of a Williamson relative by marriage.

Most of the jurors looked familiar. Annette and Renee had seen them at one time or another around Ada. It was indeed a small town.

The jurors were back by nine the following morning. Nancy Shew gave the opening statement for the state, almost a carbon copy of the one she had used for Fritz. Barney deferred his initial remarks until after the state's case-in-chief was finished.

The first witness called by the prosecution was again Glen Gore, but things did not go as planned. After stating his name, Gore went silent and refused to testify. He invited Judge Jones to hold him in contempt; what did it matter? He was serving forty years anyway. His reasons were not clear, but perhaps had something to do with the fact that he was doing time at the state prison, where snitches were held in low regard by their peers, as opposed to the Pontotoc County jail, where snitching was rampant.