The Innocent Man (37 page)

He was moved back, but the damage was painfully clear.

Dennis Fritz heard the good news that Ron had prevailed at the federal level and would get another trial. Dennis had not been so lucky. Since he was not under a death sentence, he had no lawyer and was forced to file his own habeas corpus petition. He had lost at the district court level in 1995 and was appealing to the federal Tenth Circuit.

Ron’s retrial was bittersweet for Dennis. He was dejected because he was convicted by the same witnesses and the same set of facts, yet his habeas appeal had been turned down. At the same time, he was very pleased that Ronnie would get another day in court.

In March 1996, he finally wrote the Innocence Project and requested their help. A student volunteer wrote back and sent a questionnaire. In June, the student requested Dennis’s lab work—the analysis of his hair, blood, and saliva. Dennis had it neatly filed away in his cell, and he quickly sent it to New York. In August, he sent his appellate briefs, and in November he sent his entire trial transcript. Later that month, he received the wonderful news that the Innocence Project had officially taken his case.

Letters went back and forth, weeks and months passed. The Tenth Circuit denied his appeal, and when
the Supreme Court refused to hear his case in May 1997, Dennis went through his own bout of depression. His appeals were over. All those wise judges sitting in their black robes and plowing through their thick law books had seen nothing wrong with his trial. Not a single one detected the obvious—an innocent man was wrongly convicted.

The future of life in prison that he had so strongly refused to believe was now a possibility.

In May, he sent four letters to the Innocence Project.

In 1979, in the small town of Okarche, just north of Oklahoma City, two men, Steven Hatch and Glen Ake, broke into the home of the Reverend Richard Douglass. In the ensuing ordeal, Douglass and his wife were shot and killed. Their two young children were also shot and left for dead; somehow they survived. The killing was done by Glen Ake, who was convicted and sentenced to death, then given a new trial because the judge had denied him access to a mental health expert. His appeal,
Ake v. Oklahoma
, was a landmark decision. At his second trial, he received a life sentence, which he is still serving.

Steven Hatch’s participation in the killings was greatly in doubt and hotly disputed, but he nonetheless received the death penalty. On August 9, 1996, Hatch was strapped to the gurney and rolled into the death chamber on H Unit. Present in the witness room were the two Douglass children, adults by then.

Glen Ake, the unquestioned gunman, got life. Steven Hatch, who killed no one, was executed.

In 1994, a twenty-year-old American Indian named Scott Dawn Carpenter robbed a store in Lake Eufaula and murdered the owner. After only two years on death row, he was able to stop his appeals and get the needle.

On April 10, 1997, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver affirmed Judge Seay. The court took exception to his ban on hair evidence, but agreed that Ron Williamson had been wrongly convicted.

With a new trial in order, Ron’s case was moved to the Capital Trial Division of the Indigent Defense System, where the new director, Mark Barrett, supervised a team of eight lawyers. Because of the complexity of the case, and because of his experience with Ron, he assigned the case to himself. The initial truckload of materials he received filled sixteen boxes.

In May 1997, Mark and Janet Chesley drove to McAlester to see the client. Janet’s role was to reintroduce Mark to Ron. They had last seen each other in 1988, shortly after Ron arrived in F Cellhouse and Mark was assigned his first appeal.

Though he knew Janet and Kim Marks and most of the indigent appellate lawyers, and though he’d heard many rumors and tales of Ron and his adventures on death row, Mark was still startled at his condition. In 1988, Ron was thirty-five years old, weighed 220 pounds, and had an athletic build, confident walk, dark hair, and a baby face. Nine years later, he was forty-three and could easily have passed for sixty-five. After a year in the SCU, he was still gaunt, pale, disheveled, ghostlike, and obviously very sick.

But he was able to remain engaged through a long
conversation about his case. He rambled at times, and drifted off into monologues that made no sense whatsoever, but for the most part he knew what was going on and where his case was headed. Mark explained that DNA testing would compare Ron’s blood, hair, and saliva samples with the hair and semen found at the crime scene, and that the conclusion would be certain, guaranteed, foolproof. DNA doesn’t lie.

Ron showed no hesitation; in fact he was eager to have the testing done.

“I am innocent,” he said over and over. “And I have nothing to hide.”

Mark Barrett and Bill Peterson agreed that Ron should be evaluated to determine his mental competency. They also agreed on DNA testing. Peterson pushed hard for DNA because he was convinced it would finally nail Ron.

The testing would have to wait, however, because Mark Barrett’s austere budget wouldn’t allow it. The cost was initially expected to be about $5,000, money that would not be available for a few months. It would eventually cost much more than the first estimate.

Instead, Mark went to work on the competency hearing. He and his rather lean staff compiled Ron’s medical records. They located a psychologist who reviewed the records, interviewed Ron, and was willing to travel to Ada to testify.

After two trips to the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals, a one-year layover in Judge Seay’s office, a two-year stop at the Tenth Circuit in Denver, two useless but required visits to the U.S. Supreme Court in
Washington, and a truckload of routine filings back and forth among all these various courts, the matter of the state of Oklahoma versus Ronald Keith Williamson had now returned home.

It was back in Ada, ten years after four cops surrounded him, shirtless and shaggy and tinkering with a lawn mower with only three wheels, and arrested him for murder.

C H A P T E R  14

T
om Landrith was a third-generation native of Pontotoc County. He attended Ada High School and played on two state championship football teams. College and law school were at the University of Oklahoma, and when he passed the bar, he settled into his hometown and joined a small firm. In 1994, he ran for district court judge and easily defeated G. C. Mayhue, who had defeated Ronald Jones in 1990.

Judge Landrith was well acquainted with Ron Williamson and the Carter murder, and when the Tenth Circuit affirmed Judge Seay, he knew the case was headed back to Ada, to his courtroom. Typical of a small town, he had represented Ron on a drunk-driving charge in the early 1980s; they briefly played on the same softball team; Landrith played high school football with Johnny Carter, Debbie’s uncle; and Landrith and Bill Peterson were old friends. During Ron’s murder trial in
1988, Landrith had slipped into the courtroom several times out of curiosity. Of course, he knew Barney well.

It was Ada, and everybody knew everybody.

Landrith was a popular judge, folksy and funny, but strict in his courtroom. Though he had never been fully convinced Ron was guilty, he was not convinced he was innocent, either. Like most folks in Ada, he had always felt the guy had a loose screw or two. But he was anxious to see Ron, and to make sure his retrial was conducted fairly.

The murder was fifteen years old and still unsolved. Judge Landrith had great sympathy for the Carters and their ordeal. It was time to settle the matter.

On Sunday, July 13, 1997, Ron Williamson left McAlester, never to return. He was driven by two Pontotoc County deputies to Eastern State Hospital in Vinita. The sheriff, Jeff Glase, told a newspaper reporter that the prisoner behaved himself.

“They didn’t report any trouble out of him whatsoever,” Glase said. “But when you’re in shackles, leg irons and a straight jacket, there’s not really much you can do to cause a lot of trouble.”

It was Ron’s fourth admission to Eastern State. He was placed in the “pretrial program,” to be evaluated and treated so that he could one day stand trial.

Judge Landrith set a trial date for July 28, but then postponed it pending an evaluation of Ron by the doctors at Eastern State. Though Bill Peterson did not object to the evaluation, he left little doubt as to his opinion of Ron’s competency. In a letter to Mark Barrett, he said, “My personal opinion is that he was competent
under Oklahoma law and that his disruptions in court were merely a show of anger at the time he was tried and convicted.” And, “He functioned reasonably well in jail.”

Bill Peterson liked the idea of DNA testing. He had never wavered in his belief that Williamson was the killer, and now it could be proven with real science. He and Mark Barrett swapped letters and quibbled over the details—which lab, who pays for what, when to start the testing—but both agreed that the testing would take place.

Ron was stabilized and doing better. Anyplace, even a mental hospital, was an improvement over McAlester. Eastern State had several units, and he was placed in a heavily secured one, complete with bars on the windows and plenty of razor wire to look at. The rooms were small, old, and not very nice, and the secured unit was overflowing with patients. Ron was lucky to have a room; others slept in beds in the hallways.

He was immediately examined by Dr. Curtis Grundy and found to be incompetent. Ron appreciated the nature of the charges against him but was unable to assist his attorneys. Dr. Grundy wrote to Judge Landrith and said that with proper treatment Ron might become competent enough to stand trial.

Two months later, Dr. Grundy evaluated him again. In a detailed, four-page report sent to Judge Landrith, Dr. Grundy determined that Ron (1) was able to appreciate the nature of the charges against him, (2) was able to consult with his lawyer and rationally assist in the preparation of his defense, and (3) was mentally ill and required further treatment—“he should continue to receive psychiatric treatment throughout his
trial participation for the purpose of maintaining his competence to stand trial.”

Additionally, Dr. Grundy determined that Ron was harmless, saying, “Mr. Williamson does not appear to pose an immediate, significant threat to himself or others should he be released without further inpatient treatment. He currently denies experiencing suicidal and homicidal ideation or intent. He has not displayed aggressive behavior towards himself or others during this hospitalization. The current assessment of his dangerousness is based upon his placement in a structured, secure setting and may not be applicable to unstructured environments.”

Judge Landrith set the competency hearing for December 10, and Ron was moved back to Ada. He checked into the Pontotoc County jail, said hello to his old pal John Christian, and was placed in his old cell. Annette was soon there to see him, with food, and she found him upbeat, hopeful, and very happy to be “home.” He was excited about a new trial and the prospect of proving his innocence. He rambled on incessantly about Ricky Joe Simmons, with Annette constantly asking him to change the subject. He could not.

The day before the hearing, he spent four hours with Dr. Sally Church, a psychologist hired by Mark Barrett to testify about his competency. Dr. Church had already met with him twice and reviewed the extensive records of his medical history. She had little doubt that he was incompetent to stand trial.

Ron, though, was determined to prove he was ready for a trial. For nine years he had dreamed of the
chance to again confront Bill Peterson and Dennis Smith and Gary Rogers and all the liars and snitches. He’d killed no one, and he was desperate to finally prove it. He liked Mark Barrett, but he was angry that his own lawyer was trying to prove he was crazy. Ron just wanted a trial.

Judge Landrith scheduled the hearing in a smaller courtroom, down the hall from the main one, where Ron had been convicted. On the morning of the tenth, every seat was taken. Annette was there, as were several reporters. Janet Chesley and Kim Marks were waiting to testify. Barney Ward was absent.

The last time Ron made the short walk from the jail to the courthouse in handcuffs he had been sentenced to die. He was thirty-five then, still a young man with dark hair and a stocky build and nice suit. Nine years later, he made the walk again, a white-haired, ghostlike old man in prison garb and unsteady on his feet. When he walked into the courtroom, Tom Landrith was shocked at his appearance. Ron was very happy to see “Tommy” up there on the bench in a black robe.

When Ron nodded and smiled, the judge noticed that most of his teeth were gone. His hair was streaked yellow from the nicotine on his hands.

Appearing for the state to contest Ron’s claims of incompetence was Bill Peterson, who was irritated by the very notion and disdainful of the proceedings. Mark Barrett was assisted by Sara Bonnell, a lawyer from Purcell who would hold the “second seat” in Ron’s retrial. Sara was an experienced criminal lawyer, and Mark relied heavily on her.

They wasted no time in proving their case. Ron was the first witness and within seconds had everybody thoroughly confused. Mark asked him his name, then they had the following exchange:

Mark: “Mr. Williamson, there’s a person other than yourself who you believe committed this crime?”

Ron: “Yes there is. His name is Ricky Joe Simmons of 323 West 3rd Street, at the time of September 24th, 1987, confession to the Ada Police Department. That’s the address he listed he was living at. I received verification there were some Simmons living at that address, along with Ricky Joe Simmons. There was a Cody and a Debbie Simmons living there.”

Mark: “And you tried to get the word out about Ricky Simmons?”

Ron: “I have told a lot of people about Mr. Simmons. I’ve wrote to Joe Gifford, I wrote to Tom and Jerry Criswell at the funeral home, and knowing that if they bought a monument here in Ada, they would have bought it from Joe Gifford, because he’s the only monument works. And Forget-Me-Not Florist handled the floral arrangements. I wrote to them. I wrote to some people at the Solo Company, where his former, his former employer. I wrote to the glass plant, his former employer, and to the decedent’s former employer.”