The Innocent Man
BOOK REVIEW
"Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed." Francis Bacon (d. 1626)
Book Reviewed
by Audra Trull, Denton, TX
The Innocent Man
John Grisham,
Doubleday, New York, 2006, $29.
As an avid reader of John Grisham`s books, I was ready to read his "non-fiction" work The Innocent Man. This thought provoking book tells of injustice in a very small conservative town, Ada, Oklahoma.
Grisham stated in an interview that after reading the obituary in The New York Times on Dec. 9, 2004 of Ron Williamson, a former baseball player who was wrongfully convicted of murder in Ada and came within five days of being executed before a stay was ordered, that he was compelled to write Ron`s story.
Grisham researched the fate of a man falsely accused of rape and murder. Although the accused was given many legal opportunities, he was nevertheless convicted of the crimes and sentenced to death.
The justice system did not work for Williamson, even though he was not in a minority class. Ron was a promising pro baseball player with the Oakland A`s.
Ron`s bad habits overshadowed his Pentecostal religious background. His mother and sisters never gave up trying to help Ron overcome these demons that drove him to mental illness.
The path of injustice is present in Ron`s efforts to prove himself innocent. Having no physical evidence, the system still sent Ron to death row because of the testimonies of jailhouse snitches and convicts.
Ron Williamson and Mr. Fritz, a friend of Ron`s, were convicted in the 1982 slaying of Debra Sue Carter. Mr. Fritz got a life sentence and Mr. Williamson spent nine years on death row. In April, 1999, an Ada judge noted that DNA tests of semen and hair samples did not genetically match Mr. Fritz or Mr. Williamson and thus he dismissed the charges.
Barry Scheck, the lawyer who founded the Innocence Project (a legal group that uses DNA to exonerate convicts) represented Mr. Fritz.
This book is shocking and it makes one hope that DNA evidence will be required and allowed for all cases, especially capital crimes. The book will aid the general public to realize how important DNA testing has become to exonerate innocent people.
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