The Innocent Man

Ron's and Dennis' respective lawyers succeed in having some of the charges against them dropped due to the statute of limitations having expired, and a new hearing is called. The judge orders separate trials for Ron and Dennis. A series of jailhouse snitches come forward as witnesses, but some are eliminated as their stories keep changing. While Ron and Dennis are in jail, a drug addict named Ricky Joe Simmons goes to the police and confesses to killing Debbie, but Detective Smith dismisses the statement, telling Simmons “In my opinion, you didn’t kill Debbie Carter” (93). Ron is again evaluated (this time for disability benefits) and is determined to be incompetent to work, but Ron’s lawyer does not bring up the question of Ron’s competency in court.

The police recruit Dennis’s cellmate to spy on him, and “under oath and lying badly” (94), this man claims that under the pressure of questioning, Dennis had admitted to the murder. Trial dates are set, and Peterson believes that if he “could get a conviction for Fritz in the first trial, the Williamson jurors would take their seats and start looking for a noose” (95).

When Fritz’s trial begins, the prosecution’s strategy is to talk much more about Williamson and let the jury draw a conclusion of guilt by association. At this point, the jurors have all been following the case in the local news for years, and are well aware that the police believe Ron and Dennis to be guilty.

Testimony demonstrates that Ron and Dennis had indeed been friends and that they had at times been rowdy drinkers. Most of the witnesses have little of substance to contribute, but the state’s final witness is Melvin Hett, “the OSBI hair man, a veteran testifier who’d helped send many people to prison” (102). Though hair analysis had long been considered unreliable, the witness gives a lengthy testimony, filled with enlarged photos and technical terminology calculated to confuse jurors. Hett had been assigned the analysis for this case after the original expert had concluded that the hairs taken from the crime scene were “microscopically consistent only with those of Debbie Carter” (103), and the prosecution needed a second opinion. Three years later, Hett produced a report stating that some of the samples were consistent with samples taken from Williamson and Fritz. A third and later opinion completely refutes Hett’s findings, but nonetheless, Hett proceeds to testify.

Only one witness, besides Dennis himself, is called by the defense: the third hair expert, the one who disputed Hett’s findings. After dramatic closing arguments, the jury finds Dennis guilty and sentences him to life in prison. Dennis continues to insist on his innocence.

Ron’s trial begins soon after Dennis’s ends, and many of the same witnesses are called. The jury is selected. Similar testimony is offered to the testimony in Dennis’s trial, with the state’s case resting heavily on unreliable witnesses and jailhouse snitches. Ron’s lawyer, Barney, who is blind, is unable to analyze the photos presented by the state as evidence.

When it is revealed that the state had suppressed evidence favorable to the defense, Barney moves for a mistrial but is overruled. Ron isrelatively calm during the proceedings, though at one point he become so angry at a witness’s blatant lies that he threatens her in front of the jury. Hett, the hair expert, claims that four of the hairs found at the crime scene “matched” Ron’s. Barney objects, as the misleading word “match” is not allowed in hair analysis testimony, but is overruled. Barney calls several jailers as witnesses, and they testify that they had never heard Ron make any self-incriminating statements while in prison. But although there are major holes or flaws in practically every argument and piece of evidence presented by the state, nevertheless, the case seems to come down to Peterson’s word against Williamson’s; and while neither man is known to consistently speak the truth, only one has a reputation for being strange, violent, and antisocial.

The jury finds Ron Williamson guilty on all counts. In the sentencing phase, the state calls four women to testify that Ron had harassed or threatened them, as a way of demonstrating that "there was a strong likelihood that Ron would kill again and was thus a continuing threat to society" who "should be put to death" (131). In his closing argument, prosecutor Bill Peterson freely embellishes on the facts and begs the jury for the death penalty, which they deliver after less than two hours of deliberation.