WEBVTT - #086 Jason Flom with John Grisham 0:00:00.960 --> 0:00:03.800 This Paul is from a correction facility, and it's subject 0:00:03.840 --> 0:00:15.920 to monitoring and recording contactly elevenarisma. 0:00:15.360 --> 0:00:17.840 Here. And it hasn't been. 0:00:17.800 --> 0:00:19.920 Easy one hundred years. 0:00:20.640 --> 0:00:21.000 That's man. 0:00:21.239 --> 0:00:24.480 I'm a kid. I didn't do anything, you know, and uh, 0:00:24.880 --> 0:00:27.400 you know that was a that was real painful, man, 0:00:28.440 --> 0:00:32.240 you know, because my life was discarded as if you know, 0:00:32.360 --> 0:00:34.240 like I was a piece of trash or something, you know, 0:00:34.280 --> 0:00:37.360 one hundred years and I had dreams and I wanted 0:00:37.400 --> 0:00:39.120 to do things. I wouldn't committing crimes. 0:00:39.560 --> 0:00:41.879 You know. I was a very good young man. 0:00:42.479 --> 0:00:45.040 That is what happens in so many cases. The cops 0:00:45.440 --> 0:00:48.160 have a hunch, because they're so smart at the scene, 0:00:49.040 --> 0:00:51.880 they have a hunch, and once they act on that hunch, 0:00:52.440 --> 0:00:55.360 they sort of developed tunnel vision and they take off 0:00:55.480 --> 0:00:58.000 marching in the wrong direction. And that happens in so 0:00:58.160 --> 0:00:59.600 many of these wrongful convictions. 0:01:00.120 --> 0:01:04.200 The opening the cell door and I'll walk down stave 0:01:04.680 --> 0:01:08.759 and I actually walked downstairs to be outside. It felt 0:01:08.880 --> 0:01:11.840 very strange to be, like I said, to be walking 0:01:11.959 --> 0:01:14.240 without no shackles on my feet. I thought it was 0:01:14.280 --> 0:01:16.400 a dream. But then again, it wasn't a dream. 0:01:17.400 --> 0:01:19.160 This is a wrongful Conviction. 0:01:31.000 --> 0:01:34.520 Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm that's me. 0:01:34.840 --> 0:01:38.319 I'm your host, and today we have a very special 0:01:38.360 --> 0:01:43.240 and unusual episode featuring the one and only John Grisham. 0:01:43.280 --> 0:01:44.360 John, Welcome to the show. 0:01:44.600 --> 0:01:45.360 Delighted to be here. 0:01:45.840 --> 0:01:47.760 So, John, I want to talk to you about this 0:01:48.520 --> 0:01:52.880 incredible TV series I just watched on Netflix, The Innocent Man, 0:01:52.920 --> 0:01:54.640 which is based on the book by the same name 0:01:54.680 --> 0:01:59.120 that you wrote several years ago, and it for anyone 0:01:59.160 --> 0:02:02.280 who hasn't watched it, I highly recommend it because it 0:02:02.480 --> 0:02:07.040 just rocked my world. How did you get involved in 0:02:07.160 --> 0:02:09.960 this case in the first place, the case of Ron 0:02:10.000 --> 0:02:11.280 Williamson and Dennis Fritz. 0:02:11.800 --> 0:02:14.840 Yeah, by the way, thanks for having me. Delighted to 0:02:14.880 --> 0:02:17.480 be here, look forward to it. And we've served together 0:02:17.520 --> 0:02:19.680 on the board of the Innisis Project for probably ten 0:02:19.760 --> 0:02:22.000 years now, right, yeah, quite a while, go way back. 0:02:23.280 --> 0:02:25.440 I'm on that board because I wrote this book. And 0:02:25.520 --> 0:02:30.079 I wrote this book because I saw an obituary in 0:02:30.080 --> 0:02:32.239 the New York Times in December of two thousand and 0:02:32.320 --> 0:02:35.919 four for a guy named Ron Williamson who had just 0:02:36.080 --> 0:02:40.959 died obviously in Oklahoma, and he was my age, my 0:02:41.440 --> 0:02:47.120 same background, everything, and he had come within five days 0:02:47.160 --> 0:02:51.239 of being executed in Oklahoma for a crime for murder 0:02:51.320 --> 0:02:56.240 he did not commit. And the obituary was fascinating. I mean, 0:02:56.360 --> 0:02:59.600 I love New York Times obituaries because well, they don't 0:02:59.600 --> 0:03:02.360 write about boring people really well, and they write about 0:03:02.360 --> 0:03:04.959 people these fantastic stories of people I've you've never heard of, 0:03:05.639 --> 0:03:08.760 and uh so I've always check out the Times obituaries, 0:03:08.800 --> 0:03:12.800 but normally there are people in New York. But Ron's 0:03:12.800 --> 0:03:16.799 story was, uh it just captured my imagination. And but 0:03:17.000 --> 0:03:18.679 by the time the day was over, I had talked 0:03:18.720 --> 0:03:22.760 to both of his sisters, one in Tulsa, one in Dallas, 0:03:22.880 --> 0:03:24.480 and I said, hey, I'm gonna I'm going to write 0:03:24.520 --> 0:03:29.040 this book, and they said whatever, and one thing led 0:03:29.080 --> 0:03:31.680 to another. I took off to Oklahoma to start digging, 0:03:32.400 --> 0:03:34.000 and I had no idea what I was doing. I 0:03:35.160 --> 0:03:37.640 I'm not a journalist, I'm not trained in you know, 0:03:38.120 --> 0:03:39.880 that type of work, and I had no idea how 0:03:39.920 --> 0:03:42.160 to go about telling that a real story. 0:03:42.360 --> 0:03:44.840 And this is your only nonfiction book. And it's interesting 0:03:44.920 --> 0:03:48.360 because there's that classic adage the truth is changed than fiction. 0:03:48.720 --> 0:03:52.480 I think you spent your life as probably the most 0:03:53.080 --> 0:03:58.840 you know, prolific crime novelist, maybe ever right, and and 0:03:58.960 --> 0:04:02.640 coming up with these stores. It's what you do, dreaming 0:04:02.720 --> 0:04:05.320 these stories up literally, But then then you bump into 0:04:05.400 --> 0:04:08.360 this one and it's beyond anything that you probably could 0:04:08.360 --> 0:04:10.280 have dreamed up, right, I mean, it's interesting. On the 0:04:10.360 --> 0:04:13.520 trailer for the Netflix show, I heard you say if 0:04:13.560 --> 0:04:15.680 you wrote this, nobody would believe it, right. 0:04:16.160 --> 0:04:18.600 That's true with a lot of these innocent stories. As 0:04:18.640 --> 0:04:21.520 I have come to know over the past dozen years, 0:04:22.920 --> 0:04:26.720 the facts are so incredible that first of all, I 0:04:26.760 --> 0:04:30.400 couldn't dream these things up. I couldn't create these these 0:04:31.040 --> 0:04:38.280 these cases because nobody can. There's so remarkably unbelievable. And 0:04:38.360 --> 0:04:40.280 if you did, if you try to pass this off 0:04:40.320 --> 0:04:44.159 as in a novel, it's not gonna work. A novel 0:04:44.240 --> 0:04:46.680 has to be plausible. This story can be can be 0:04:46.800 --> 0:04:48.840 fiction and what you know, it's it's it can be 0:04:49.160 --> 0:04:52.680 science fiction, can be you know, real, you know, all 0:04:52.800 --> 0:04:56.920 kinds of different genres of fiction, but it has to be. 0:04:57.360 --> 0:04:59.520 There has to be a level of plausibility in the 0:04:59.600 --> 0:05:02.760 story to make it work. Some of the cases we 0:05:02.880 --> 0:05:07.599 deal with in the innocence world are hard to believe, 0:05:07.800 --> 0:05:10.600 impossible to believe almost some of the factual scenario in 0:05:10.880 --> 0:05:15.000 the case in Oklahoma, the Ron Williamson case. The murder 0:05:15.040 --> 0:05:17.080 itself was easy to believe because it was a horrible 0:05:17.120 --> 0:05:19.960 crime and those happen all the time. But what happened 0:05:20.000 --> 0:05:22.520 after that, and how he was railroaded and convicted in 0:05:23.160 --> 0:05:27.680 Ada is just a really remarkable story in the once 0:05:28.160 --> 0:05:29.760 I started digging out, I couldn't stop. 0:05:30.080 --> 0:05:34.320 It is a remarkable story, and in so many ways 0:05:34.360 --> 0:05:37.960 and on so many different levels, the victim in this case, 0:05:38.040 --> 0:05:43.159 Debbie Sue Carter, is it's a tragic. All these cases 0:05:43.200 --> 0:05:47.160 are tragic, but in hers, especially as a father, it's 0:05:47.279 --> 0:05:51.880 just such a horrific circumstance, which speaks to what we're 0:05:52.279 --> 0:05:55.960 talking about right now, because in her case, Debbie Sue 0:05:56.040 --> 0:06:01.159 Carter was raped and murdered and tortured. Her killer made 0:06:01.240 --> 0:06:06.960 sure that she suffered agonizing, an agonizing death, And what 0:06:07.800 --> 0:06:11.560 that speaks to is the injustice that's done to everyone, 0:06:11.760 --> 0:06:15.320 her family, her memory, and everyone else when the wrong 0:06:15.400 --> 0:06:19.719 person is convicted. But also what boggles my mind, John, 0:06:19.839 --> 0:06:23.440 is that in a community, especially a small community like Ada, 0:06:23.920 --> 0:06:27.600 you would think that even if an authority figure, a 0:06:28.440 --> 0:06:31.200 police detective or whatever they had an an investigator was 0:06:32.120 --> 0:06:34.799 so sort of morally bankrupt that they didn't mind, didn't 0:06:34.839 --> 0:06:38.359 lose a wink of sleep convicting an innocent guy. By definition, 0:06:38.600 --> 0:06:43.680 they were allowing this sick, twisted, psychotic individual who did 0:06:43.760 --> 0:06:47.160 these terrible, terrible things to w su Carter to remain free. 0:06:48.120 --> 0:06:48.960 Yeah, and they knew him. 0:06:49.680 --> 0:06:50.200 They knew him. 0:06:50.200 --> 0:06:51.480 He was a local boy. He grew up there. He 0:06:51.520 --> 0:06:53.560 went to hoschool with Debbie. That's how he got an apartment. 0:06:54.040 --> 0:06:59.600 He was the last person seen alive with her when 0:06:59.640 --> 0:07:03.920 she was in a honky TNK late at night as 0:07:04.000 --> 0:07:07.040 she was leaving, he was at her car. They were 0:07:07.360 --> 0:07:10.160 arguing and she sort of shoved him away and got 0:07:10.200 --> 0:07:12.120 in the car and she drove off, and there were 0:07:12.160 --> 0:07:15.480 witnesses to that, and the police knew it. And a 0:07:15.560 --> 0:07:19.640 few hours later he knocked on her apartment and she 0:07:19.800 --> 0:07:22.240 let him in because she knew him. She didn't I 0:07:22.280 --> 0:07:24.000 don't think she liked him, but wanted to be with him. 0:07:24.040 --> 0:07:27.240 But because they were acquainted going to school together, he 0:07:27.360 --> 0:07:30.800 had the entree, the ability to get into her apartment. 0:07:31.480 --> 0:07:35.600 And once he did, you know, it was a bad night. 0:07:36.680 --> 0:07:41.760 But again the police did not did not pursue him 0:07:42.960 --> 0:07:48.480 the obvious person. For years, years and years of the 0:07:48.760 --> 0:07:54.920 murder was unsolved. The cops were thoroughly incompetent, and at 0:07:54.960 --> 0:07:58.040 the crime scene. The crime scene was horrendous because it 0:07:58.240 --> 0:08:02.320 was a terrible killing. And he hung around and he 0:08:02.760 --> 0:08:05.480 wrote messages with her blood on the wall and wrote 0:08:05.560 --> 0:08:08.040 messages on the kitchen table with a bottle of ketchup, 0:08:08.120 --> 0:08:11.520 and there was just a horrible thing. He stayed there 0:08:11.520 --> 0:08:14.720 for a long time, trying to devise a way to 0:08:14.840 --> 0:08:18.320 deflect or point to blame in somebody else, and anyway, 0:08:18.880 --> 0:08:20.480 he was there for a long time. So it was 0:08:20.520 --> 0:08:24.520 a horrific scene. And these two Keystone cops who are 0:08:24.560 --> 0:08:28.200 on the scene decide, because it's so violent and it's 0:08:28.280 --> 0:08:32.120 so bloody, it had to be the work of two people. Okay, 0:08:32.200 --> 0:08:34.720 that was that decision. Hey, it's got to be two people. 0:08:35.160 --> 0:08:39.200 We had two defendants here. And that is what happens 0:08:39.240 --> 0:08:42.000 in so many cases. The cops have a hunch, because 0:08:42.000 --> 0:08:45.319 they're so smart at the scene, they have a hunch, 0:08:45.920 --> 0:08:48.559 and once they act on that hunch, they sort of 0:08:48.640 --> 0:08:51.640 developed tunnel vision and they take off marching in the 0:08:51.679 --> 0:08:54.320 wrong direction. And that happens in so many of these 0:08:54.360 --> 0:08:55.240 wrongful convictions. 0:08:55.520 --> 0:08:57.679 Yeah, in this case, it's fair to say that this 0:08:58.160 --> 0:09:02.600 case actually came with instructions which were ignored and they 0:09:02.679 --> 0:09:05.559 didn't go after the actual killer. I'm forgetting his name, 0:09:06.400 --> 0:09:08.439 Glenn Gore. Glenn Gore, Right, what a name. 0:09:08.640 --> 0:09:10.600 Right, He's in Gore House, Like. 0:09:10.720 --> 0:09:13.480 He's serving life with no parole in Oklahoma, convicted by 0:09:13.520 --> 0:09:16.559 the jury in Ada many years too late. 0:09:16.880 --> 0:09:20.240 Right, I mean, talk about I mean, what an ironic 0:09:21.520 --> 0:09:23.599 thing that the guy's name would be Glenn Gore. Like 0:09:23.640 --> 0:09:25.679 I said, more instructions as if they were coming from 0:09:25.679 --> 0:09:27.600 it and it was a local criminal. He had a record, 0:09:27.679 --> 0:09:30.800 He was a bad dude. The cops were doing for drugs. 0:09:30.920 --> 0:09:33.160 He was a rough family that I mean, he was 0:09:33.240 --> 0:09:37.040 well known to the police, and they still didn't pursue him. 0:09:37.160 --> 0:09:39.640 They didn't prosecute him until they actually had to write. 0:09:39.679 --> 0:09:43.480 It became you know, it became impossible for them to 0:09:43.559 --> 0:09:47.679 continue to deflect the blame from him. They sort of 0:09:48.400 --> 0:09:50.360 and I've seen this in other cases, they sort of 0:09:50.480 --> 0:09:54.640 protected him, right, which is you know, really hard to 0:09:55.160 --> 0:09:59.480 process as to you know, I mean, I grew up 0:09:59.520 --> 0:10:06.480 like most people, you know, respecting the uniform and you know, really, 0:10:06.880 --> 0:10:09.360 I think we all played cops like when we were kids, 0:10:09.440 --> 0:10:11.400 and you know, and I still do. I mean, I 0:10:11.480 --> 0:10:13.360 still I am a person who believes in law and order, 0:10:13.440 --> 0:10:17.040 and I uh, you know, I have a lot of 0:10:17.080 --> 0:10:20.000 respect for most of the people in the criminal justice system. 0:10:20.040 --> 0:10:22.599 But when you get bad actors like these guys, the 0:10:22.720 --> 0:10:25.200 damage that they can inflict is enormous. 0:10:25.240 --> 0:10:28.320 I don't know how bad they were, it's obvious how 0:10:28.400 --> 0:10:34.160 incompetent they were. Uh, you know, there was some allegations 0:10:34.240 --> 0:10:35.920 that these guys, there's some of the some of the 0:10:36.160 --> 0:10:38.880 some of the cops there were later convicted of selling drugs, 0:10:39.240 --> 0:10:41.320 and there was some evidence that Gore was selling drugs 0:10:41.360 --> 0:10:43.080 and the good Gore was selling drugs with the cops, 0:10:43.120 --> 0:10:45.520 and you know, there was never really a clear uh 0:10:46.280 --> 0:10:49.840 path to prove that he was with the cops obviously 0:10:49.920 --> 0:10:53.440 knew him. Some of the cops were shady, but still 0:10:53.880 --> 0:10:57.360 just to sheer incompetence of not investigating the two league 0:10:57.400 --> 0:11:00.640 cops in the case. I don't think any history with 0:11:00.800 --> 0:11:02.480 drug dealing or whatever. They were pretty you know, just 0:11:02.520 --> 0:11:05.120 a couple of stand up guys, uh, doing their best. 0:11:05.559 --> 0:11:10.439 But the incompetence of just not even considering uh the 0:11:10.800 --> 0:11:12.920 last person seeing with the victim. 0:11:13.440 --> 0:11:16.640 Yeah, who became a witness against uh Ron? I guess right, 0:11:16.720 --> 0:11:17.240 Yeah he was. 0:11:17.520 --> 0:11:21.040 He was cleverly, I guess you could say deflected the blame, 0:11:21.240 --> 0:11:24.520 as we see not infrequently in these cases where the 0:11:24.640 --> 0:11:28.520 actual perpetrator uh becomes a witness for the prosecution, because 0:11:28.559 --> 0:11:32.719 it's probably the simplest way to uh, you know, put 0:11:32.920 --> 0:11:35.960 turn the attention away from you and onto somebody else's 0:11:36.040 --> 0:11:38.000 make yourself into a witness. And that's exactly what he did, 0:11:38.000 --> 0:11:39.440 and he got away with it for quite a while. 0:11:40.720 --> 0:11:44.199 So in this case, you know, you talked about how 0:11:44.320 --> 0:11:47.640 you were so taken with the story of Ron Williamson. 0:11:48.240 --> 0:11:52.920 It is a fascinating and and sort of terrible story 0:11:53.440 --> 0:11:55.920 in that this was a young man who had once 0:11:56.000 --> 0:11:58.400 had so much promise right he was a He was 0:11:58.480 --> 0:12:02.679 a professional baseball player, drafted by the Oakland A's and 0:12:03.559 --> 0:12:05.680 seemed to have his whole life laid out in front 0:12:05.679 --> 0:12:07.880 of him until he was injured, never made it to 0:12:07.960 --> 0:12:08.680 the big leagues. 0:12:09.280 --> 0:12:12.040 And what a strange thing to think about. 0:12:11.920 --> 0:12:16.360 The cruel, sort of capricious or arbitrary nature of this 0:12:16.520 --> 0:12:20.240 whole thing that he went from a major League prospect 0:12:20.360 --> 0:12:23.080 to being on death row, and as you said, coming 0:12:23.160 --> 0:12:26.079 within five days of being executed for a crime that 0:12:26.520 --> 0:12:28.679 everyone should have known. He didn't come in, and of 0:12:28.720 --> 0:12:32.960 course he lost his mind in prison and died tragically 0:12:33.480 --> 0:12:37.760 soon after he was released. And there was another innocent man, 0:12:38.800 --> 0:12:39.520 Dennis Fritz. 0:12:40.840 --> 0:12:42.960 Dennis's crime was that he was hanging around with Ron, 0:12:43.679 --> 0:12:47.920 and Ron became when Ron was growing up by the town. 0:12:48.000 --> 0:12:52.000 Ron was in high school in this section of southeastern Oklahoma. 0:12:52.720 --> 0:12:57.400 A lot of coaches and scouts believe that he was 0:12:57.440 --> 0:13:01.360 the next Mickey Mental Mickey's small town in Oklahoma and 0:13:02.040 --> 0:13:03.920 a little bit to the north of this, and Mickey was, 0:13:04.040 --> 0:13:07.960 of course Mickey, but Ron was in the same mold, 0:13:08.040 --> 0:13:12.199 big strong guy, great athlete, solid legs, could hit, and 0:13:12.800 --> 0:13:15.800 he certainly had a huge ego. Small town guy, but 0:13:16.040 --> 0:13:19.040 you know, he was attracting attention from the scouts, and 0:13:19.520 --> 0:13:22.520 he had a great high school baseball coach, and they 0:13:22.600 --> 0:13:25.719 won all these games, and Ron was the man, and 0:13:25.800 --> 0:13:27.800 he was going to be the next Mickey Mantle. And 0:13:28.280 --> 0:13:30.679 he got drafted by the Aids in nineteen seventy two 0:13:30.760 --> 0:13:34.319 in the first round. They paid him somewhere between fifteen 0:13:34.320 --> 0:13:36.400 one hundred thousand bucks for the bonus, which is not bad. 0:13:36.480 --> 0:13:39.559 Back then, he didn't it didn't last ron very long. 0:13:39.600 --> 0:13:41.480 He went through it pretty fast, lost most of it 0:13:41.520 --> 0:13:43.160 in a poker game. But he went off to the 0:13:43.200 --> 0:13:45.040 minor leagues because he was gonna make plenty of money 0:13:45.080 --> 0:13:48.240 and you know, injuries, and he at some point he 0:13:48.320 --> 0:13:56.280 began showing signs of some pretty unstable mental issues and 0:13:57.200 --> 0:14:02.760 undiagnosed later diagnosed as being BiPOL or and crashed and burned, 0:14:02.840 --> 0:14:06.679 and he never he never got over the fact the 0:14:06.800 --> 0:14:09.680 baseball career was so important to him as a small 0:14:09.800 --> 0:14:12.599 kid in small town boy in Oklahoma. You know, he 0:14:13.000 --> 0:14:14.760 couldn't accept the fact that he was not gonna he 0:14:14.840 --> 0:14:16.599 was not gonna be famous, he was not gonna be 0:14:16.600 --> 0:14:19.920 playing in Yankee Stadium, he was not gonna be Mickey Mantle. 0:14:20.080 --> 0:14:22.640 And it just so, it crashed, It crashed on him, 0:14:22.640 --> 0:14:27.080 and he just he went back to Ada and acted 0:14:27.160 --> 0:14:31.920 more and more, uh, more and more bizarre different way. 0:14:32.000 --> 0:14:35.760 He became kind of the town not town drunk, but 0:14:36.000 --> 0:14:40.400 kind of the town misfit, uh, unemployed, drinking too much, 0:14:40.520 --> 0:14:44.320 partying too much, fighting too much. Uh. And he was 0:14:44.440 --> 0:14:46.920 up and down. They they tried to get him some 0:14:47.080 --> 0:14:50.200 help with the local mental health people. They tried their best, 0:14:50.640 --> 0:14:53.200 but it was not enough, and he was he was 0:14:53.320 --> 0:14:55.840 just spiraling down and he became sort of it was 0:14:55.960 --> 0:14:58.600 it was easy to convict Ron because everybody knew it. 0:14:58.640 --> 0:15:02.480 He became the town weirdo, the town goofball, the town 0:15:02.640 --> 0:15:04.880 ne'er do well. That was kind of Ron Williamson. And 0:15:04.960 --> 0:15:09.520 people for a few bucks, he would cut your grass 0:15:09.640 --> 0:15:11.960 with an old beat up lawnmower with his shirt off. 0:15:12.440 --> 0:15:14.320 He pushes mower up and down the street, trying to 0:15:14.360 --> 0:15:16.960 get you know, a few jobs here and there, that 0:15:17.120 --> 0:15:21.240 kind of life. Lived almost homeless and somebody's shed in 0:15:21.280 --> 0:15:24.080 the backyard, and it was a hard fall for him 0:15:24.560 --> 0:15:28.440 and it really affected him mentally. And then and then 0:15:28.520 --> 0:15:32.080 he lived fairly close to where Debbie Sue Carter was murdered. 0:15:32.280 --> 0:15:34.920 And the cops early on, and the cops and the 0:15:35.040 --> 0:15:39.400 prosecutor felt for a long time like Ron was the killer. 0:15:39.680 --> 0:15:42.880 They just believe they just again tunnel vision, They had 0:15:42.920 --> 0:15:45.320 a hunch he was their man, and they had no proof, 0:15:46.040 --> 0:15:49.200 but they didn't stop him. They just kind of manufactured 0:15:49.240 --> 0:15:50.360 a case against. 0:15:50.120 --> 0:15:53.200 Him, right There was no physical evidence connecting them to 0:15:53.280 --> 0:15:55.400 the crime obviously because they weren't there. 0:15:55.480 --> 0:15:57.680 You know, so well, there was physical evidence in that 0:16:00.360 --> 0:16:03.200 this part of what was wrong with the prosecution. There 0:16:03.200 --> 0:16:06.520 were seventeen I think seventeen scalp and pubic hair is 0:16:06.560 --> 0:16:10.680 taken from the victim's bed crime scene, and at trial, 0:16:10.880 --> 0:16:18.120 this you know, certified analyst with the Oklahoma Crime Lab testified. 0:16:19.360 --> 0:16:19.720 That the. 0:16:21.560 --> 0:16:25.800 Scalp in pubic hair matched Ron Williamson and Dennis Fritz. 0:16:26.680 --> 0:16:31.680 So they had physical proof junk science, okay, and ten 0:16:31.760 --> 0:16:34.920 years later all seventeen hares were excluded by DNA. There 0:16:34.960 --> 0:16:37.320 was no DNA available in nineteen eighty seven when they 0:16:37.320 --> 0:16:40.000 went to trial, so there was a little bit of 0:16:40.440 --> 0:16:45.520 a little bit of physical proof. It was almost all hearsay, 0:16:46.280 --> 0:16:52.320 jailhouse snitch, bogus testimony by cops, a dream confession, just 0:16:53.000 --> 0:16:57.800 garbage prosecution, and the prosecutor was pushing hard. He got 0:16:58.160 --> 0:17:02.960 a jury, local jury, they wouldn't change venue, and so 0:17:03.280 --> 0:17:05.399 he ram runned you through a conviction. 0:17:05.960 --> 0:17:08.320 Yeah, junk science is an important part of this too. 0:17:08.520 --> 0:17:10.560 And you know it's interesting because I do want to 0:17:10.560 --> 0:17:12.760 talk about the death penalty and how this affected you 0:17:13.000 --> 0:17:15.280 and maybe your views on the death penalty. I don't 0:17:15.280 --> 0:17:17.520 know what they were leading into this. I don't know 0:17:17.560 --> 0:17:19.560 what they are now, but I'm interested to hear. But 0:17:20.600 --> 0:17:23.119 the other thing is with this case, it's just so 0:17:25.840 --> 0:17:28.639 it's so easy to put yourself in the shoes of 0:17:28.720 --> 0:17:32.359 the people on that jury. Right, who were you know 0:17:32.800 --> 0:17:35.080 from the town. As you said, there was no change 0:17:35.119 --> 0:17:38.560 of venue. There's a highly publicized case, A terrifying murder 0:17:38.640 --> 0:17:40.800 in a small community always will generate that kind of 0:17:40.960 --> 0:17:44.560 media attention and extra pressure on the police. But I 0:17:44.680 --> 0:17:48.240 wanted to ask you, you know, one of my goals 0:17:48.320 --> 0:17:51.000 in doing this show. Well, my main goal in doing 0:17:51.080 --> 0:17:54.960 this show was to educate people, all of whom everyone 0:17:54.960 --> 0:17:57.080 who's listening right now is a potential jurors. So are 0:17:57.119 --> 0:17:59.200 you and I I don't know who would put me 0:17:59.240 --> 0:18:00.440 on a jury never know? 0:18:01.320 --> 0:18:03.359 Exclude you as a defense lawyer. I'd kick you off 0:18:03.400 --> 0:18:08.040 my jury exactly. So a defense learn so not a prosecutor. 0:18:08.240 --> 0:18:13.879 Okay, So, so you know, my my hope is that 0:18:14.400 --> 0:18:17.480 in doing this show, and with the now almost eight 0:18:17.560 --> 0:18:19.399 million listens that we've had over the course of the 0:18:19.440 --> 0:18:23.520 first seven seasons, that we have helped to educate people 0:18:23.840 --> 0:18:27.680 so that when they are called to serve on a 0:18:27.760 --> 0:18:30.399 jury at a criminal trial, and when they hold a 0:18:30.960 --> 0:18:34.840 Ron Williamson or Dennis Fritz's life in their hands, and 0:18:35.359 --> 0:18:39.320 that they will be better educated and more maybe I 0:18:39.359 --> 0:18:42.280 would say more attentive, but maybe a little bit more skeptical. 0:18:43.640 --> 0:18:46.840 And you know, I don't want to prevent a rightful 0:18:46.880 --> 0:18:47.919 conviction from happening. 0:18:48.440 --> 0:18:50.800 You know, there is the famous saying Ben Franklin said, right, 0:18:50.840 --> 0:18:53.000 it's better that a one hundred guilty men go free 0:18:53.080 --> 0:18:56.399 than the one innocent man should suffer. Dan's beIN Franklin 0:18:56.480 --> 0:19:00.520 kind of a great American, And so I'm interested in 0:19:00.640 --> 0:19:03.760 your take on that, John, what would you say to 0:19:03.960 --> 0:19:09.119 anyone who's listening now, as having lived through this and 0:19:09.440 --> 0:19:11.280 research that have done all this work on this case 0:19:11.440 --> 0:19:13.359 and all the other things that you've done throughout your 0:19:13.440 --> 0:19:16.320 career looking at the criminal justice matters, how would you 0:19:16.440 --> 0:19:19.399 advise yourors if they're going next week into a trial. 0:19:19.800 --> 0:19:22.800 What would you tell them that could help them to 0:19:22.920 --> 0:19:26.399 make the best decision in the interest of justice? 0:19:26.960 --> 0:19:32.359 Well, I would urge anybody to ask themselves the basic question, 0:19:32.640 --> 0:19:37.200 what is the physical evidence? Where let's start with the proof. 0:19:37.880 --> 0:19:43.080 If it is something like hair analysis or bitemark analysis 0:19:43.720 --> 0:19:48.200 or bootprint analysis, or any one of fifteen different analyzes 0:19:48.240 --> 0:19:50.800 that have all been proven to be rather shaky. 0:19:51.040 --> 0:19:54.399 Entire tracksco precise stuff is all. You know. 0:19:54.440 --> 0:19:56.680 When the FBI says that ninety five percent of its 0:19:56.800 --> 0:20:02.640 crack hair analysts got it wrong, ninety five percent from 0:20:02.680 --> 0:20:04.800 the FBI, you can imagine what's happening out in the States. 0:20:05.680 --> 0:20:08.399 It's junk science. It's unreliable. So go back to the 0:20:08.480 --> 0:20:14.520 basic proof and if a prosecution does not have hard 0:20:14.560 --> 0:20:18.040 physical evidence, and in most cases they do. Okay, most 0:20:18.040 --> 0:20:22.760 of these cases are not that close, but as we 0:20:22.880 --> 0:20:24.439 know in this type of work, there are a lot 0:20:24.440 --> 0:20:28.440 of cases where the evidence is very flimsy. Number two, 0:20:28.640 --> 0:20:30.200 I would say, if they show up with a jail 0:20:30.240 --> 0:20:33.760 house snitch, who is going to testify that while he 0:20:33.880 --> 0:20:36.320 was in the sale with the defendant six months ago, 0:20:36.840 --> 0:20:39.800 he heard the defendant give up full confession, talked about 0:20:39.840 --> 0:20:42.480 the case, knew the facts, blah blah blah. Don't believe 0:20:42.480 --> 0:20:43.960 a word of what the snitch is saying because the 0:20:43.960 --> 0:20:46.800 snitches cut a deal with the prosecutor or the police 0:20:47.040 --> 0:20:50.680 to get some time off. Snitches should not be allowed period. Okay, 0:20:52.240 --> 0:20:55.240 you know, I would if there's a false confession, if 0:20:55.280 --> 0:21:01.640 there's a if there's a confession, okay, asked some basic questions. 0:21:02.160 --> 0:21:05.119 Did the defendant recant the following day as soon as 0:21:05.119 --> 0:21:06.880 he coud get away from the cops and he recan't? 0:21:07.200 --> 0:21:10.920 Has he recanted every day since then? And most importantly, 0:21:11.359 --> 0:21:14.680 does his confession? Do the facts match up with the 0:21:14.800 --> 0:21:18.520 fiscal evidence? Because in almost every false confession there's no match. 0:21:18.960 --> 0:21:21.600 You know what if the guy confessed to he said 0:21:21.680 --> 0:21:24.280 to get out of the room with the cops and 0:21:24.800 --> 0:21:28.240 they are notoriously unreliable. You and I, sir, on the 0:21:28.240 --> 0:21:31.200 Innocence Project Board, we have three hundred and seventy DNA 0:21:31.240 --> 0:21:34.480 exonerations in the past twenty five years. Twenty five percent 0:21:34.600 --> 0:21:37.840 involved false confessions. False confessions are a huge problem that 0:21:37.960 --> 0:21:40.880 happen all the time. And if you're a juror, say, okay, 0:21:41.200 --> 0:21:44.840 the guy confessed in police custody. Was a lawyer present, No, 0:21:45.320 --> 0:21:47.480 because if the lawyer's there, he wouldn't be confessing. So 0:21:47.520 --> 0:21:50.640 if the lawyer wasn't there, how long did the interrogation last? 0:21:51.119 --> 0:21:54.280 Was it twelve hours throughout the night? And when he 0:21:54.359 --> 0:21:57.119 did confess, what did he say about the facts of 0:21:57.160 --> 0:22:01.520 the case do the matchup is pretty basic stuff, but 0:22:01.880 --> 0:22:06.359 not all not all durors, you know, or I guess 0:22:07.720 --> 0:22:10.960 curious enough to ask those questions. Although I got to say, Jason, 0:22:11.000 --> 0:22:13.600 they are getting more and more skeptical because we are 0:22:13.720 --> 0:22:17.480 seeing fewer and fewer death verdicts, far fewer death verdicts, 0:22:17.560 --> 0:22:21.000 far fewer executions, far fewer people on death row, because 0:22:21.119 --> 0:22:24.040 jurors are far more skeptical. 0:22:32.800 --> 0:22:35.200 I want to harp on one point that you made, 0:22:35.240 --> 0:22:38.800 which is that in that FBI, in the investigation that 0:22:38.880 --> 0:22:43.040 was done into the FBI forensic analysts who testified. 0:22:42.600 --> 0:22:45.879 In hair cases, specifically in cases where hair was. 0:22:46.000 --> 0:22:51.920 The predominant factor leading to the conviction, they found I 0:22:51.960 --> 0:22:55.240 think they examined almost four hundred cases, and they found that, 0:22:55.320 --> 0:22:57.639 as you said, over ninety five percent of them, the 0:22:58.680 --> 0:23:03.440 FBI agents or experts were wrong. But in one hundred 0:23:03.480 --> 0:23:05.320 percent of the cases at which they were wrong, they 0:23:05.359 --> 0:23:08.320 were wrong in favor of the prosecution. So whether they 0:23:08.359 --> 0:23:11.080 were mistaken, it's hard to believe that they were mistaken 0:23:11.160 --> 0:23:14.720 in all those cases because it just statistically doesn't add 0:23:14.800 --> 0:23:16.760