Oklahoma Criminal Defense Blog

The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals has affirmed U.S. District Court Judge Ronald A. White’s dismissal in September, 2007, of a pitiful lawsuit brought by former Ada District Attorney Bill Peterson against author John Gresham and others.  The lawsuit was filed in the Muskogee in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Oklahoma by Richardson.  Richardson is certainly a capable lawyer, but the journalists noted that he had called a news conference when he filed the lawsuit and “could not be reached” to comment on the affirmance of the dismissal.

Former Pontotoc County District Attorney Bill Peterson filed the lawsuit over John Gresham’s book, “The Innocent Man,” which described Peterson’s conviction of two innocent men based in reliance upon the testimony of one Glen Gore and the evidence of jailhouse “snitches.”  Dennis Fritz, then a schoolteacher, and his friend, Ronald Williamson, a former minor-league baseball player, were the two convicted in Pontotoc County District Court in 1982.
Fritz received a life sentence and Williamson received the death penalty.  Both men were later exonerated by DNA tests in 1999.  Not only were the accused men proven to be innocent, but the prosecution’s star witness, Glen Gore, was proven by DNA evidence to have been the perpetrator of the murder.  He is now serving a sentence of life without parole, tried for murder after the release of Fritz and Williamson.

Gresham’s book details the faulty police and prosecution work that never investigated Glen Gore, that relied on “confessions” that resulted form questionable interrogation of the suspects as well as the reliance on jailhouse informers, known as “snitches.”   Snitches, as every criminal defense lawyer knows, are motivated by presenting as much damaging evidence as possible against whoever is being prosecuted.  Their situation requires them to help the prosecution as much as possible, and they have a motive to lie, have a motive to create false evidence.  Whether they do create false evidence in a given case is difficult for a jury to judge.  A reader of “The Innocent Man” wondered just how much instigation there was from the police and prosecution to obtain the snitch testimony, but it was clear that the prosecution never hesitated in taking it at face value to help their case.

Joining Bill Peterson as co-plaintiffs were former state criminologist Melvin Hett and former Shawnee police officer Gary Rogers.  Defendants in the case were John Gresham, well-known attorney Barr Scheck, Gresham’s publisher, Doubleday Dell Publishing Group and Robert Mayer, author of “The Dreams of Ada,” a nonfiction book about the 1984 murder in Ada, Oklahoma, and the conviction for that murder of Tommy Ward and Karl Fontenot.  Ward and Fontenoy, who are still in prison, were convicted by jailhouse snitch testimony, similar to that used to convict Fritz and Williamson.

This lawsuit never did not appear to have any legs when it was filed because it was based on a claim of libel brought by public officials. This is First Amendment territory, the “free speech” area that courts have repeatedly ruled should remain hands-off to the courts, and a complaint brought by public officials, who have been held to be less deserving of court protection.  The Tenth Circuit Court opinion pointed to an Oklahoma Statute that provides “criticism upon the official acts of any and all public officers” cannot be considered libelous unless a defendant makes a false allegation that official engaged in criminal behavior.

When the lawsuit was filed, Ron Fritz was quoted as saying, “ The only reason [Peterson’s] filing this is he’s trying to wipe the egg off his face because he convicted two innocent men.”  It certainly looks that way.