The Innocent Man (19 page)

During one conference, though, he could barely speak. Barney met with the jailers, the dosage was readjusted, and Ron sprang back to life.

He was generally uncooperative with his lawyer. He offered little but a steady stream of rambling denials. He was being railroaded into a conviction, just like Ward and Fontenot. Barney was frustrated from the day he was appointed, but he plowed ahead.

Glen Gore was in jail on kidnapping and assault charges. His court-appointed counsel was Greg Saunders, a young lawyer who was building a civil practice in Ada. During a client conference at the jail, he and Gore almost came to
blows. Saunders walked next door to the courthouse and asked Judge Miller to remove him from the case. Judge Miller refused, so Saunders said he would take the next capital murder appointment if he could get rid of Gore. A deal, said Judge Miller, you’re now representing Dennis Fritz in the Carter murder.

Though Greg Saunders was apprehensive about his death penalty case, he was also excited about working closely with Barney Ward. As an undergraduate at East Central, he had dreamed of being a trial lawyer and had often cut classes when he knew Barney was in action. He had watched Barney rip shaky witnesses and intimidate prosecutors. Barney respected judges but did not fear them, and he could chat with a jury. He never used his disability as a crutch, but at crucial moments he could use it to arouse sympathy. To Greg Saunders, Barney was a brilliant courtroom lawyer.

Working independently, but also quietly working together, they filed a truckload of motions and soon had the district attorney’s office scrambling. On June 11, Judge Miller called a hearing on issues raised by both the state and the defense. Barney was demanding a list of the names of all the witnesses the prosecution expected to use in the case. Oklahoma law required such disclosure, but Bill Peterson was having trouble with the statute. Barney explained it to him. The prosecutor wanted to disclose only those witnesses he planned to use at the preliminary hearing. Not so, said Judge Miller, and Peterson was ordered to timely notify the defense of any new witness.

Barney was in a feisty mood and prevailed on most of the motions. He was also showing signs of frustration. In one aside, he commented on being court appointed
and not wanting to spend too much time on the case. He vowed to do a proper job, but was worried about getting consumed with his first capital murder trial.

The following day he filed a motion requesting additional counsel for Ron. The state did not object, and on June 16 Frank Baber was appointed by Judge Miller to help Barney. The legal wrangling and paperwork battles continued as both sides prepared for the preliminary hearing.

Dennis Fritz was placed in a cell not far from Ron Williamson. He couldn’t see Ron, but he could certainly hear him. When he wasn’t overmedicated, Ron yelled constantly. For hours, he would stand at the bars in his cell door and bellow over and over, “I am innocent. I am innocent.” His deep and husky voice echoed through the cramped building. He was a wounded animal, in a cage, in dire need of help. The prisoners were stressed anyway, but Ron’s screeching voice added another thick layer of anxiety.

Other inmates would yell back at him and taunt him about killing Debbie Carter. The bickering and cursing back and forth were occasionally amusing but generally nerve-racking. The jailers moved Ron from his isolation cell into a bullpen with a dozen others, an arrangement that proved disastrous. The men had little privacy and practically lived shoulder to shoulder. Ron respected no one’s space. A petition quickly appeared. It was signed by the other prisoners and begged the jailers to take Ron back to isolation. To prevent a riot or a killing, the guards agreed.

Then there were long periods of silence, and everyone, inmates and guards, would breathe easier. Soon the entire jail knew that either John Christian was on duty or the guards had given Ron another toxic dose of Thorazine.

The Thorazine quieted him, though at times there were other side effects. It often made his legs itch, and the “Thorazine shuffle” became part of the jail’s routine as Ron stood at the bars of his cell and ducked and weaved from side to side for hours.

Fritz would talk to him and try to calm him, but it was hopeless. Ron’s cries of innocence were painful to hear, especially for Dennis, who knew him best. It was obvious that Ron needed much more than a bottle of pills.

Neuroleptic drugs are synonymous with tranquilizers and antipsychotics, and are used primarily on schizophrenics. Thorazine is a neuroleptic, and it has a tortured history. In the 1950s it began flooding state mental hospitals. It’s a potent drug that strongly reduces awareness and interest. Psychiatrists who support the drug claim it actually cures the patient by altering or repairing bad brain chemistry.

But critics, who greatly outnumber supporters, cite numerous studies that show the drug to produce a long, frightening list of side effects. Sedation, drowsiness, lethargy, poor concentration, nightmares, emotional difficulties, depression, despair, lack of spontaneous interest in the surroundings, a blunting or dulling of the patient’s awareness and motor control. Thorazine is
toxic to most brain functions and disrupts nearly all of them.

Its harshest critics have called it “nothing more than a chemical lobotomy.” They claim that the only real purpose of Thorazine is to save money for mental institutions and prisons and to make patients and inmates more manageable.

Ron’s Thorazine was doled out by his jailers, sometimes with instructions from his lawyer. Often, though, there was no supervision. He got a pill when he got too loud.

Even though Dennis Fritz had remained in Ada for four years after the murder, he was considered an escape risk. Like Ron’s, his bail was exorbitant and out of the question. Like all defendants, they were presumed to be innocent, but nonetheless kept in jail so they wouldn’t flee or be loose on the streets killing others.

Presumed innocent, but they would wait almost a year until they went to trial.

A few days after Dennis arrived at the jail, a man by the name of Mike Tenney suddenly appeared outside his cell. Fat and balding and not well spoken, Tenney nonetheless had a big smile and a friendly manner, and he treated Dennis like an old friend. And he desperately wanted to talk about the Carter murder.

Dennis had been around Ada long enough to know the jail was a cesspool of snitches, liars, and cutthroats, and he knew that any conversation with anyone could very well be repeated in a courtroom in a version slanted
sharply against the person on trial. Every inmate, guard, cop, trustee, janitor, cook, everyone was a potential snitch, anxious to pick up details and then retail the information to cops.

Tenney said he was new to the place and claimed to be a jailer, but in fact he was not yet on the county’s payroll. Though unsolicited, and certainly not based on knowledge or experience, Tenney had plenty of advice for Dennis. In his opinion, Dennis was in deep trouble, staring at an execution, and the best way to save his skin was to come clean, confess, cut a deal with Peterson over at the D.A.’s office, and give up the dirt on Ron Williamson.

Peterson would be fair.

Dennis just listened.

Tenney wouldn’t go away. He returned every day, shaking his head gravely at Dennis’s predicament, babbling on about the system and how he thought it operated, giving sage advice that was absolutely free.

Dennis just listened.

A preliminary hearing was scheduled for July 20, before Judge John David Miller. Like in most jurisdictions, preliminaries were crucial in Oklahoma because the state was required to play its hand, to show the court and everyone else who its witnesses would be and what they would say.

The challenge for a prosecutor at a preliminary was to show just enough evidence to convince the judge that there were reasonable grounds that the defendant was guilty while not yet revealing everything to the defense. It was gamesmanship, with a bit of risk.

Normally, though, a prosecutor had little to worry about. Local judges find it hard to get reelected if they dismiss criminal charges.

But with such flimsy evidence against both Fritz and Williamson, Bill Peterson had to push hard at the preliminary. He had so little to offer that he could certainly hold nothing back. And the local newspaper would be there, anxious to report every word. Three months after its publication,
The Dreams of Ada
was still being hotly debated around town. The preliminary hearing would be Peterson’s first performance in a major trial since the book came out.

A nice crowd gathered in the courtroom. Dennis Fritz’s mother was there, as were Annette Hudson and Renee Simmons. Peggy Stillwell, Charlie Carter, and their two daughters arrived early. The regulars—bored lawyers, local gossips, idle clerks, retirees with nothing to do—waited for their first good look at the two murderers. The trial was months away, but the live testimony was about to be heard.

Before the hearing, and just for the sheer fun of it, the Ada police informed Ron that Dennis Fritz had finally made a full confession that implicated both of them in the rape and murder. The shocking news sent Ron off the deep end.

Dennis was sitting quietly with Greg Saunders at the defense table, looking over some documents, waiting for the hearing to begin. Ron was sitting nearby, still handcuffed and shackled and glaring at Fritz as if he wanted to choke him. Suddenly and without warning, Ron bolted out of his chair and began screaming at Fritz, who was just a few feet away. A table went flying through the air and landed on Barney’s assistant, Linda. Dennis
jumped up quickly and moved near the witness stand as the guards tackled Ron.

“Dennis! You no good lousy son of a bitch!” he screamed. “We’re gonna settle this right now!” His deep, husky voice boomed around the courtroom. Barney got hit and fell out of his chair. The guards grabbed Ron, tackled him, and tried to subdue him. He was kicking and thrashing about like a madman, and the guards had their hands full. Dennis, Greg Saunders, and the court personnel quickly backed away and gawked in disbelief at the sight of the pileup in the middle of the courtroom.

It took several minutes to subdue Ron, who was bigger than any of his guards. As they dragged him away, Ron spewed a vile stream of vulgarities and threats at Fritz.

When the dust settled, the tables and chairs were rearranged and everyone took a deep breath. Barney didn’t see the brawl, but he knew he’d been in the middle of it. He rose and said:

I want the record to show that I am now making an application to withdraw. That boy won’t cooperate with me at all. If he was paying me I wouldn’t be here. I can’t represent him, Judge, I just can’t do it. I don’t know who’s going to, but I can’t. And I’m—if I can’t get relief here—I’m going to see if I can’t get it from the Court of Criminal Appeals. I’m not going to put up with this. I’m too damned old for it, Judge. I don’t want anything to do with him, under any circumstances. I have no idea about his guilt—that has nothing to do with it—but I’m not going to put up with this. The next thing you know, he’ll be thumping
on me; and when he does, he’s in bad trouble, and I’ll probably be in worse trouble.

To which Judge Miller quickly replied, “Counsel’s motion will be overruled.”

It was heartbreaking for Annette and Renee to watch their brother act like a madman and to see him dragged around in chains. He was sick and needed help, a long stint in an institution with good doctors who could get him well. How could the state of Oklahoma put him on trial when he was so obviously sick?

Across the aisle, Peggy Stillwell watched the madman and shuddered at the image of the violence he had inflicted on her daughter.

After a few minutes of order, Judge Miller ordered Williamson brought in again. In the holding room, the guards had explained to Ron that his behavior was inappropriate for a judicial setting and that further outbursts would be dealt with sternly. But as they led him in, he began cursing Dennis Fritz as soon as he saw him. The judge sent him back to jail, cleared the courtroom of all spectators, and waited an hour.

Back in the jail, the guards ramped up their warnings, but Ron didn’t care. Bogus confessions were all too common in Pontotoc County, and he couldn’t believe the cops had squeezed one out of Dennis Fritz. Ron was an innocent man and determined not to be persecuted like Ward and Fontenot. If he could get his hands around Dennis’s neck, he would shake out the truth.

His third entry was identical to the first two. As he stepped into the courtroom, he yelled, “Fritz, we’re going to settle this now—you and me is going to settle it.”

Judge Miller interrupted him, but Ron didn’t slow down. “Me and you is going to settle it,” he yelled at Dennis. “I ain’t never killed nobody.”

“Hold him there,” Judge Miller said to the guards. “Mr. Williamson, any further outbursts of anger, this hearing will be conducted without your presence.”

“That’ll be fine with me,” Ron shot back.

“Okay, you understand—”

“I’d rather not be here. If you don’t mind, I’d rather go back to my cell.”

“You wish to waive your right to be present in the preliminary hearing?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Nobody’s threatening or forcing you to do this, this is your own personal—”

“I’m threatening,” Ron snapped, glaring at Dennis.

“Has anybody threatened you—this is your own personal decision to waive your—”

“I said I’m threatening.”

“Okay. You do not wish to appear at this hearing; is that correct?”

“That’s correct.”

“Okay. You may take him back to the county jail. Court record will reflect that the Defendant Ronald K. Williamson does waive his right to appearance in this courtroom due to his outbursts of anger and total disruption. And the Court finds that this hearing cannot be conducted with his presence based on—to his current statements to this Court and outbursts.”

Ron went to his cell, and the preliminary hearing proceeded.

In 1956, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a case known as
Bishop v. United States
, ruled that the conviction of a mentally incompetent person was a denial of due process. Where doubt exists as to a person’s mental competency, the failure to conduct a proper inquiry is a deprivation of his constitutional rights.