The Innocent Man (26 page)

Rogers also admitted that the police department had a ready supply of pencils and paper, but stumbled badly when he tried to explain why he and Rusty Featherstone did not allow Ron to write his own statement. They refused to let him see it, either, after they were through with it, and Barney piled on the suspicion. As he drilled Rogers about his unusual procedures,
Rogers made a huge mistake. He mentioned Ron’s 1983 interrogation, on video, in which Ron had steadfastly denied any involvement.

Barney was incredulous. Why had he not been told of this tape? Pretrial discovery required the prosecution to hand over all exculpatory evidence. Barney had timely filed the proper motions, months earlier. The prior September the court had ordered the prosecution to provide defense counsel with all statements made by Ron relative to the murder investigation.

How could the police and prosecutor sit on the tape for four and a half years and hide it from the defense?

Barney had very few witnesses at his disposal, since the case against Ron was basically an “admission” case, one in which the state was using a variety of witnesses, albeit a rather sketchy collection, to testify that Ron, at various times and in various ways, admitted to the murder. The only real way to fight such testimony was to deny it, and the only person who could deny making the admissions was Ron himself. Barney planned to put Ron on the stand in his own defense, but he was terrified of the prospect.

The 1983 tape would have been a powerful tool to show the jury. Four and a half years earlier, long before the prosecution had put together its roster of shady witnesses, and long before Ron had such a lengthy criminal record to answer to, he had sat before a camera and repeatedly denied any involvement.

In a famous 1963 decision,
Brady v. Maryland
, the U.S. Supreme Court held that “the suppression by the
prosecution of evidence favorable to an accused upon request violates due process where the evidence is material either to guilt or to punishment, irrespective of the good faith or bad faith of the prosecution.”

Investigators have all the resources. Frequently, they uncover witnesses or other evidence favorable to a suspect or defendant. For decades they could simply ignore this exculpatory evidence and proceed with a prosecution.
Brady
leveled the field and instantly became ingrained in criminal procedure. A
Brady
request is one of many routine motions a criminal defense lawyer files early in the case. A
Brady
motion. A
Brady
hearing.
Brady
material. “I nailed him on
Brady.”
The case worked its way into the vernacular of criminal law practice.

Now Barney stood before Judge Jones, with Rogers still in the witness chair and Peterson studying his shoes, with a clear
Brady
violation. He moved for a mistrial and was overruled. Judge Jones promised to hold a hearing on the matter—after the trial was over!

It was late on Friday, and everyone was tired. Judge Jones recessed until 8:30 Monday morning. Ron was handcuffed, surrounded by deputies, and hustled out of the courtroom. He had behaved himself so far, and it had not gone unnoticed.

The front page of Sunday’s
Ada Evening News
ran the headline “Williamson Controlled During Trial’s First Day.”

The first witness Monday was Dr. Fred Jordan, who, for the third time in the same seat, testified in detail
about the autopsy and cause of death. It was also the third time that Peggy Stillwell had suffered through it, and the ordeal was certainly not getting any easier. Fortunately, she could not see the photos they were passing around to the jurors. She could see their reactions, and that was enough.

Dr. Jordan was followed by Tony Vick, Fritz’s neighbor; Donna Walker, the convenience store clerk; and Letha Caldwell, the late-night acquaintance—all three as useless as they’d been in the Fritz trial.

The fireworks started when Terri Holland was called next. During the preliminary hearing she’d been able to spin her yarns with no fear of getting caught. Now, though, with Ron glaring at her and knowing the truth, things would be different.

The tales started immediately—Holland was describing statements Ron allegedly made in jail about Debbie Carter—and it was obvious Ron was about to explode. He shook his head, clenched his jaws, stared at Holland as if he’d like to kill her. Finally she said, “He said if she’d went ahead and went with him, he’d never had to kill her.”

Ron said, “Oh,” loudly.

Nancy Shew asked, “Did you ever hear a phone conversation that he made that related to Debbie Carter in any way?”

Holland: “I was working in the laundry; I was a trustee. Ron was on the phone to his mom, and he told his mother—he was trying to get her to bring him cigarettes or something, I’m not sure what, but they—he was hollering at her. And he told her that if she didn’t that he’d have to kill her like he did Debbie Carter.”

To which Ron yelled, “She is lying!”

Nancy Shew continued: “Ms. Holland, did you ever hear him describe or talk about any of the details of Debbie Carter’s death?”

Holland: “He was telling—I guess in the bullpen, the guys back there—that he—he said he shoved a Coke bottle up her ass and her panties down her throat.”

Ron jumped up, pointed at her, and yelled, “You are lying! I ain’t never said nothing like that in my life! I did not kill this girl, and I call you a liar.”

Barney: “Be still, Ron.”

Ron: “I don’t even know what you’re—I mean, you’re going to pay for that.”

There was a pause as everyone caught their breath, and Barney slowly rose to his feet. He knew exactly what was coming—repair work. The prosecution’s star witness had botched a couple of crucial facts—the panties and the Coke bottle—a common problem with fabricated testimony.

With the courtroom tense, a lying witness exposed, and Barney already waiting to pounce, Nancy Shew tried to fix the damage.

Shew: “Ms. Holland, let me ask you about the details you were just relating. As far as your memory goes, are you sure about the objects that he stated he used? You said Coke bottle.”

Barney: “If the court please, if the court please—I heard what she said, and I don’t want this district attorney changing her testimony any either, and I object to that.”

Holland: “He said Coke bottle or catsup bottle or bottle—”

Barney: “See what I mean. If the court please.”

Holland: “It’s been four years.”

Ron: “Yeah, and you’re a—”

Barney: “Hush.”

Shew: “Ms. Holland, can you—I know you overheard different things—”

Barney: “If the court please—”

Shew: “Can you think of—”

Barney: “I’m going to object to this leading and suggestive questioning that the District Attorney is doing.”

The Court: “State a question without posturing anything in front of it.”

Shew: “Did he ever tell why—you said that he said that he killed—”

Holland: “He wanted to sleep with Debbie Carter.”

Ron: “You’re a liar!”

Barney: “Shut up.”

Ron (
standing
): “She’s a liar. I ain’t going to sit for it. I didn’t kill Debbie Carter, and you are lying.”

Barney: “Ronnie, come on, sit down.”

Peterson: “Judge, can we have a recess, please. Barney—I object to counsel’s sidebar comments, Your Honor.”

Barney: “These aren’t sidebar comments, if the court please.”

The Court: “Wait a minute.”

Barney: “I’m talking to this defendant.”

The Court: “Wait a minute. Ask your next question. Mr. Williamson, I must admonish you that you are not allowed to speak from the chair you are now in.”

Shew: “Ms. Holland, can you recall if he ever said why he did what he did?”

Holland: “Because she wouldn’t sleep with him.”

Ron: “You’re lying, damn it, tell the truth. I never killed nobody in my life.”

Barney: “Judge, I’d like to ask if we could have a recess for a few minutes here.”

The Court: “All right. Remember your instructions. The jury may step down.”

Ron: “Could I speak to her, please. Let me talk to her. What is she talking about?”

A short break cooled things down. With the jury absent, Judge Jones had a nice chat with Ron, who assured His Honor that he could behave himself. When the jury returned, the judge explained that the case was to be decided on the evidence only, and nothing else. Not comments from the attorneys, and certainly not comments and actions by the defendant.

But Ron’s chilling threat of “You’re going to pay for that” was clearly heard by the jurors. They, too, were afraid of him.

During the melee, Nancy Shew was unable to completely resuscitate her witness. With leading and suggestive questions she was able to transform the Coke bottle to a catsup bottle, but the little detail of the panties in the mouth went uncorrected. The bloody washcloth was never mentioned by Terri Holland.

The next hot-check artist called by the state to help find the truth was Cindy McIntosh, but the poor girl was so confused she couldn’t remember which story she was expected to tell. She drew a blank, and was finally dismissed without completing her duties.

Mike Tenney and John Christian told of their late-night chats with Ron in his cell and some of the strange things he said. Neither bothered to mention that Ron repeatedly denied any involvement in the murder and would often scream for hours that he was innocent.

After a quick lunch, Peterson lined up the OSBI agents in the same order as in the Fritz trial. Jerry Peters went first and told his story of reprinting Debbie’s hands after the exhumation because he was uncertain about a tiny portion of her left palm. Barney tried to pin him down on exactly how and why this became an issue four and a half years after the autopsy, but Peters proved elusive. Did he worry about his initial findings for such a long period of time? Or did Bill Peterson call at random one day early in 1987 and make some suggestions? Peters was vague.

Larry Mullins offered the same opinion as Peters—the bloody print on the Sheetrock belonged to Debbie Carter, not some mysterious killer.

Mary Long testified that Ron Williamson was a non-secretor, thus placed squarely in the minority of about 20 percent of the population. Debbie’s rapist was probably in this group. With some effort, Barney pinned her down on the exact number of people she had tested and arrived at a total of twenty, including the victim. And of that number, twelve were non-secretors, or 60 percent of her pool. He then had some fun with the math.

Susan Land testified briefly. She had begun the hair analysis in the Carter case but then transferred it to Melvin Hett. When pressed by Barney as to why, she said: “At that particular time I was working on numerous homicides and all the stress and strain, I just didn’t
feel that I could be objective, and I didn’t want to make a mistake on something.”

Melvin Hett was then sworn in and was soon delivering the same scholarly lecture he’d given a few days earlier in the Fritz trial. He described the laborious process of microscopically comparing known hair with questioned hair. He did a fine job of giving the impression that hair analysis was thoroughly reliable. It had to be; it was used all the time in criminal trials. Hett told the jury he’d worked on “thousands” of hair cases. He produced some stock diagrams of different types of hair and explained that hair has between twenty-five and thirty distinguishable characteristics.

When he finally got around to Ron Williamson, he testified that two pubic hairs found on the bed were microscopically consistent and could have come from the same source—Ron Williamson. And, two scalp hairs found on the bloody washcloth were microscopically consistent and could have come from the same source—Ron Williamson.

The four hairs could just as easily
not
have come from Ron, but Hett didn’t mention this.

With a slip of the tongue, Hett stepped out of bounds. As he was testifying about the two scalp hairs, he said, “These were the only scalp hairs that matched or were consistent with Ron Williamson.”

The word “match” is off-limits in hair analysis because it is extremely misleading. Laypeople on the jury may struggle with the concept of hairs being microscopically consistent, but they have no trouble understanding a match. It’s quicker, cleaner, easier to grasp. Like a fingerprint, a match eliminates all doubt.

After Hett used the word “match” for the second
time, Barney objected. Judge Jones overruled him, saying he could deal with it on cross-examination.

Hett’s most egregious act, though, was the manner in which he testified. Instead of educating the jurors, Hett chose instead to simply bless them with his opinions.

To help the jury evaluate the evidence, most hair analysts bring into court enlarged photos of the hair in dispute. A photo of a known hair is mounted next to a questioned hair, and the expert goes into great detail explaining similarities and dissimilarities. As Hett said, there are about twenty-five different characteristics in hair, and a good examiner will show the jury exactly what he or she is talking about.

Hett did nothing of the sort. After working on the Carter murder for nearly five years, hundreds of hours, three different reports, he did not show the jury one single enlarged photo of his work. Not a single hair taken from Ron Williamson was compared with a single hair taken from Debbie’s apartment.

Hett was, in effect, telling the jury to simply trust him. Don’t ask for proof, just believe his opinions.

The clear implication of Hett’s testimony was that four of the hairs found in the Carter apartment came from Ron Williamson. Indeed, this was the sole purpose of putting Hett on the witness stand.

His presence and testimony highlighted the unfairness of expecting an indigent defendant to get a fair trial without giving him access to forensic experts. Barney had requested such assistance months earlier, and Judge Jones had declined.

Judge Jones should have known better. Three years earlier, a major case from Oklahoma landed at the U.S. Supreme Court, and its outcome rattled the criminal courts of the country. In
Ake v. Oklahoma
, the Court said: “When a State brings its judicial power to bear on an indigent defendant in a criminal proceeding, it must take steps to assure that the defendant has a fair opportunity to present his defense…. Justice cannot be equal where, simply as a result of his poverty, a defendant is denied the opportunity to participate meaningfully in a judicial proceeding in which his liberty is at stake.”