The Innocent Man
The Innocent Man is a factual book written by John Grisham. The book narrates about four wrongly convicted individuals in a small town of Ada, Oklahoma. To start with Grisham present us with a description of Debbie Carter’s case a young woman who had been murdered after leaving her waitress job in Ada. Debbie was found dead in her apartment and as the book narrates, she was first raped before she was killed. The first suspect would have been Glen Gore a resident in the town of Ada who was known for his violence against women. At the night of her murder, Cater had been seen with Gore and that was enough reason for him to be the most likely suspect. However, the police were not interested in investigating Gore mainly because he used to sell them illegal drugs. However, the police chose to investigate two men randomly who were not linked to the murder whatsoever. The police went after Fritz and Williamson for mere reasons: First, Williamson was a known drug addicted, had a drinking problem, and frequently suffered from mental illness. Additionally, he had been convicted twice for rape. The police went after Fritz for the mere reason that he was a friend to William. According to the prosecution they frequently visited the building where Debbie used to work and the victim had complained to her friend that the two made Debbie nervous. Additionally, at the night of Debbie’s murder, Williamson had been spotted in the restaurant without Fritz. Although there was not enough evidence linking Williamson and Fritz to the murder, the police harassed them and forced them to falsely plead guilty.
Another murder occurred in Haraway, a young woman had been murdered in the same town although her body was not found. Similar to the case of Carter, the police choose to pursue two innocent men as suspects without a trace of evidence linking them to the murder. Just like Fritz and Williamson were harassed and forced by the police to confess to the murder, Tommy Ward and Karl Fontenot fell victims of the same. The two were wrongly convicted and were served with a death penalty. However, the body of the victim was later discovered and the results of the body examination did not match with the details of the false confessions. However, despite the inconsistency in the evidence, Fontenot and Ward were not granted another trial. The case of Fontenot and Ward did not affect or change the behaviors of the police and the court in any way. Ron and Frit were put on the stand for trial and despite the fact that Williamson was severely suffering from a mental illness the court affirmed that he was mentally fit to withstand a trial. In 1988 Fritz and Williamson were imprisoned for the murder of Debra Carter in Pontotoc, Oklahoma. Fritz was sent to life imprisonment while Williamson Was sentenced to a death row.
Fritz charge was not until five years after the murder. The case was delayed as the state exhumation had noted an inappropriate fingerprints analysis at the murder scene. Fritz had a chance to have a life out of jail but he was not lucky enough. The prosecution would have had no choice but to drop the charges served to Fritz. However, one day before it could happen his inmate came forward to say that Fritz had pled guilty to the murder. This inmate had a two-hour interview tape that revealed that Fritz had supposedly admitted to him that he murdered Debbie. Williamson was also not lucky. According to one female informer, Williamson had threatened to kill the informant’s mother just as he had killed Carter. According to another witness, Glenn Gore, Williamson had also been spotted at the bar where the victim used to work the night of the murder.
Another thing that led to his conviction was the police testimony that he, Williamson, had told them that he had dreamt about the crime. According to the police, Williamson dreamt killing Debbie. In the dream, he had choked Debbie with a cork around her neck and stubbed her severally. However, the police said that after a few seconds Williamson swore to never confess and asked for a lawyer. To the prosecution, that was a valid confession. This could have been a joke or some sort of hallucination but evidently, it led him to a conviction.
The provided items of evidence were tested and the seventeen hairs that were found were falsely matched to Williamson and Frit. According to the semen evidence, the killers were non-secretors just like Williamson and Fritz. Unfortunately, a long time had passed and as such fritz could not recall where he was exactly during the day of the murder. Although Williamson had tried to appeal, his first attempt was denied. He was forced to file a federal petition for a court order of habeas corpus. Lucky enough in 1995, the federal judge approved the appeal and a new trial was ordered. The judge stated that the prosecution did not disclose a videotape taken in 1983 that featured Williamson liberating himself from the crime through exculpatory statements that followed a polygraph examination. The judge also revealed the prosecution failed to disclose a tape that featured another suspect confessing to the crime. Further, the court discovered that the attorney in Williamson’s trial failed to offer sufficient legal defense by not developing evidence that William had a mental problem and failing to pursue a competency hearing.
Fritz also tried to appeal but his appeals were denied but he managed to contact the Innocence Project for help. Fortunately enough, the appeals that were filed by Williamson’s lawyers facilitated the testing of the physical evidence provided in the case. Fritz made sure that the evidence was not totally destroyed until they were matched with the DNA results by filing an injunction.
DNA results revealed that Fritz and Williamson were not the depositors of the semen that were found on the body of the victim. Additionally, the results of DNA affirmed that the hairs that had been termed matches did not belong to either Fritz or Williamson. The DNA results showed that all the evidence matched to Glenn Gore. He was one of the state’s witnesses in the trial but he could have been the first suspect. Although he had escaped after the tests were done he was later detained.
In April 1999 both Frit and Williamson were vindicated and released. The two served eleven years imprisonment for a crime they had not committed. Later the two filed a lawsuit and were compensated with five hundred thousand dollars each by the city of Ada. Oklahoma State made a settlement for each man but the amount is undisclosed. However, Williamson died in 2004 from liver cirrhosis which was diagnosed five years after he was freed.
The story of the case in the “Innocent Man” is a demonstration of how the criminal justice system is. The story of the book illustrates the rotten judicial system that exists in the current world. As such it can form part of the long growing list of stories related to justice that turn awry. The book “Innocent Man” creates a picture of an extremely faulty criminal justice system evident from the police, the prosecution, and the court. As the book portrays there is no single component of the system that appears ethical and ready to serve justice to those who deserve it. The conducts of the police, the prosecution, and the court compromise their ethics and can be termed unjust and unacceptable. The police conduct particularly appears to be the worst followed by the prosecution. Although the police did a reasonable job of conducting the murder investigations at the murder scene they did not search for fingerprints in the most crucial places. This raises a lot of questions about their competence in their line of duty. It also triggers a lot of questions like; if they didn’t look for fingerprints in these areas due to incompetence, why then didn’t they look for them there? Were they paid to hide evidence? Don’t they want justice to be served?
The police behave unlawfully throughout the investigations. First, we are told that they were harassing these two innocent suspects and they finally managed to force them to make false confessions. Although Fritz and Williamson had been involved in several behaviors that could link them to the murder police had close to no evidence that the two had murdered Carter. Yes, they were potential suspects but that does not mean they were the perpetrators. At some point the police even summoned Williamson’s friend, Fritz, claiming he was involved in the murder and without any strong evidence they forced him to perform a polygraph examination but his answers were evasive. As the author narrates the evidence against Fritz was not even a probable cause to have him arrested or even convicted.
From the start, Glen Gore should have been the prime suspect in this case. Unfortunately, we are told that he used to sell drugs to the police and that is why he was not treated as a suspect at in the first place. That was so unethical and unacceptable of the police. Glen Gore and Carter had been seen together some few hours before she was killed and in fact, one witness stated that Carter was spotted pushing Glen away. Additionally, two witnesses had reported that Debbie had previously confessed that she was scared of Gore. We don’t know how much the police knew this information but they knew that Gore and Debbie had been involved in the dispute and she was afraid of him. However, if the police were unaware of this information am sure they could have found it if they really wanted justice to prevail.
The conduct of the prosecution is also questionable and faulty. First, Bill Peterson, the prosecutor practiced multiple dishonorable and unlawful tactics in the trial. These tactics include evidence misinterpretation which misled the jury and illegally burying of evidence that could have been of help to the defense. According to the judge who assumed the case after the appeal, the prosecution had failed to reveal a videotape that would have proven that Williamson was not guilty. The prosecution also did not disclose another tape that showed that it was not Williamson nor Fritz who killed Carter but rather another suspect. To make it worse the attorney failed to legally protect the defense by failing to seek enough evidence that Williamson was mentally ill and was not fit to be put on the stand. This is an indication that the court its self was unjust.
The prosecution’s conduct evidently becomes worse as seen during Fritz trial. First, the forensic evidence showed that Fritz was a non-secretor and that the forensic evidence of the hair that was found in the murder crime matched with Fritz’s hair. These claims were so much weak and to make it worse even the forensic expert who testified about Fritz being a non-secretor was not even sure that the killers were non-secretors. Lab results also indicated that the hair only matched to that of the Victim, Debbie Carter but not to other people’s samples. The prosecution did not disclose this fact to the defense.
The evidence that the prosecution presented was so weak and the whole case was so weak from the beginning which makes us question how it even managed to survive a motion for a direct judgment from the defense. How did it even manage to provide sufficient proof for a jury to conclude that Fritz and Williamson were guilty? This raises questions about the genuineness of the court. Although Williamson and Fritz finally got the justice they deserved, they did not have to go through all the inhumane sufferings they went through. Something needed to be done sooner than later.
If I were in charge of the police or the prosecution, I would have done anything possible to ensure that Carter got the justice she deserved. The justice would not be obtained by arresting and convicting innocent people but ensuring a thorough investigation and a just ruling was done. First, as the police leader, I would have ensured that Glen was arrested as the first suspect based on the fact that he was the last person who was seen with Debbie during the night of the murder and his known behavior of violence against women. I would have also ensured that the police were carrying out just investigation and obtaining evidence justly at the best of their ability. As the leader of the prosecutor, I would have ensured that all the existing evidence was disclosed to the court without any form tempering to ensure that justice was served to those who deserved it. By doing so, I believe Dennis Fritz and Ron Williamson would have found justice sooner.