Tuesday, May 22, 2007

NBC Dateline The Accused and John Grisham Comments Here Ada Oklamhoma Murders

Please post your comments about the NBC Dateline Show The Accused aired May 22 here. To post comment click on the word comments below

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

I still have 15 minutes before I get to watch Dateline..but I heard from the East Coast it floored them!

Anonymous said...

Wow, what a great show - left me wanting to hear more!
I will now have to read Dennis Fritz's book "Journey Toward Justice" to learn more about his experience.
Thank you for this blog - lots of great information!

Anonymous said...

Great Show! Fascinating story! Will now have to read Dennis Fritz's "Journey Toward Justice"!

Anonymous said...

The East Coast was right...it FLOORED ME! What a story....
I did read Journey Toward Justice and now seeing the story I'll have to read it again.

Wrongfully Accused! said...

This issue is a serious problem in America. People have no idea how close they can be to being framed by prosecutorial misconduct. Way to go Dateline and John Grisham for covering this story in THE INNOCENT MAN! See also our story here in the USA! Thank YOU!

http://wrongfullyaccusedinusa.blogspot.com/

Anonymous said...

Oh...just remembered something else. Dateline did a story back in 2001 about Ron and Greg, and all of the footage of Ron in this new episode comes from that story. There is one shot of Ron where he gets a hug from a guy as he's leaving the courtroom. That guy is Greg.

Freedonian said...

The main focus of my own site is politics rather than criminal justice. However, that means I've got a lot of people in state legislatures that know me and know me well, and I plan to talk to them about sponsoring legislation based on the Innocence Project;s initiatives.

We had an execution here a little over two weeks ago that I think was an awful one. Philip Workman got the needle on May 9 for a botched robbery in Memphis where a policeman ended up being killed. The problem is that he didn't do it--- All forensic analysis says the bullet came not from his gun, but was entirely consistent with an accidental shooting from another policeman on the scene. The wound on the policeman's chest was consistent with an exit wound, and the one on his back was consistent with entry. Workman was using hollowpoint ammo that typically doesn't exit at all, and the police .38 ammo typically does exit.

Another man is sitting on our death row now even after the Supreme Court of the United States ordered a new trial and said there was reasonable doubt in the case. Paul Gregory House, according tothe state, sexually assaulted a woman and killed her to cover it up. The sexual assault was used as an aggravating factor and made him eligible for the death penalty.

The problem is that DNA testing has proven conclusively that the semen on the victim's body belonged not to him, but to her husband, who according to two witnesses, has made at least one drunken confession to the crime.

The only physical evidence against him could well be the result of investigative sloppiness. His jeans were taken into custody because investigators thought they saw blood on them. Either four or five (I'd have to consult my notes to be sure) vials of blood were taken as well, but only about half that amount actually made it back to the lab. Not saying the police necessarily used it to intentionally frame House, but it looks like, at the very least, the vials were improperly sealed and leaked onto the other evidence.

The defendant's advanced state of MS also makes it unlikely that he could have phsically committed the crime--- He would have to have covered two miles on foot and committed the crime within about a 40 minute window--- A challenge for a normal man.

I'm in the midst of doing a series of articles on wrongful conviction now. Come and check me out at http://thefreedonian.blogspot.com .

Truth in Justice Files said...

Dateline did an excellent job of laying out the facts of both cases (Fritz and Williamson and Ward and Fontenot).

Those who get comfortable, thinking that this only happens in Ada, or it happened over 20 years ago and times have changed, or it doesn't happen where I live and it can't happen to me, need to think again. Ada, Oklahoma is repeated over and over, across the US.

No one can provide accurate statistics on this because, even when people are cleared by DNA, the state, with rare exception, refuses to concede their innocence. The high percentage of innocent people who plead guilty or no contest further obscures a head count with even a stab at accuracy. But The Mid-Atlantic Innocence reports: “Based in part on a 1996 National Institute of Justice Report, reasonably credible estimates are that up to 10 percent of our national prison population may be factually innocent of the crimes of which were convicted. In other words, there may be close to 200,000 innocent people currently serving time in American prisons.”

As Dennis Fritz and Ron Williamson, and Thomas Ward and Karl Fontenot, and thousands more like them illustrate, it can happen to anyone.

It can happen to you.

Wrongfully Accused! said...

Thank you so much for your comment and linking me to your site. I believe there is power in numbers and the more we can increase awareness to the American public about the lack of safety for us naive innocent folks and about the corruption there is in our INjustice system the more chance we may impose reform and accountability for our legislation!