John Grisham Asking Federal Court To Dismiss "The Innocent Man" Libel Lawsuit

OKLAHOMA CITY – Author John Grisham is asking an Oklahoma federal court to dismiss a libel lawsuit filed against him by Pontotoc County District Attorney Bill Peterson and others over their depiction in Grisham’s nonfiction best-seller "The Innocent Man", about the prosecution of Dennis Fritz and Ron Williamson for the 1982 murder of Debra Sue Carter. The Pontotoc County District Attorney Bill Peterson is the prosecutor who sent Dennis Fritz and Ron Williamson, 2 innocent men to prison for 12 years with no real evidence against them. The real killer Glen Gore, was the prosecution's key witness. Other defendants in the case:

• Author Dennis Fritz ,who tells his story of his unwarranted prosecution and wrongful conviction his book "Journey Toward Justice".
• Barry Scheck, one of Fritz’s lawyers who helped exonerate him in 1999, and a co-author of “Actual Innocence,” that discusses the case of Williamson and Fritz.
  
• Robert Mayer, author of “The Dreams of Ada.” - Mayer’s book discusses another Pontotoc County murder case that is also mentioned in Grisham’s book. The murder of Denice Haraway and the subsequent investigation, prosecution and conviction of Tommy Ward and Karl Fontenot. Bill Peterson got questionable convictions on Ward and Fontenot , and they are still in prison.
  Robert Mayer, author of The Dreams of Ada; and Barry Scheck, with The Innocence Project, have also filed motions asking the court to dismiss the lawsuit against them.
  
  
• The Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, publisher of “The Innocent Man” and “Actual Innocence.”
  
• Random House Inc., which owns Doubleday Dell.
  
• Broadway Books, publisher of “The Dreams of Ada.”
  
• Seven Locks Press and/or James C. Riordan, publisher of “Journey Toward Justice.”
  Seven Locks Press and James Riordan have asked that the complaint against them be dismissed for failure to state a claim.
  
  In addition to Peterson, other plaintiffs in the lawsuit are Gary Rogers, a former Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation agent, and Melvin Hett, a retired OSBI criminalist.
  Bill Peterson and Gary Rogers were instrumental in the conviction of Ron Williamson and Dennis Fritz in the murder of Debbie Sue Carter in Ada, Oklahoma in 1982.
  The Peterson and Rogers lawsuit, filed in federal court, alleges civil conspiracy, libel, placing a person in a false light and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
  Dennis Fritz and Ron Williamson were eventually exonerated by DNA evidence after serving about 12 years in prison. A man named Glen Gore was ultimately convicted of the murder of Debra Sue Carter.
  Ron Williamson was sentenced to death for the Carter murder, Fritz received a life sentence. Ron Williamson died Dec. 4, 2004 at the age of 51.
  Dennis Fritz, recently wrote a book called, "Journey Toward Justice" about the case, is also named as a defendant in the lawsuit.
  Attorneys for Grisham, hang much of their argument for dismissal on First Amendment freedom of speech.
  “Grisham’s book, just like each of the other books about which the plaintiffs complain, is core political speech protected by the First Amendment and representing the highest order of public service by raising awareness about important social and political issues – the criminal justice system – and bringing to light issues of public concern about the performance by government officials of their public duties,” their brief states.
  They also told the court that long-established Oklahoma law forecloses any civil liability for criticism of the acts of public officials, except for any statement that “falsely imputes crime to the officer so criticized.”
  The attorneys contend that Grisham’s book amounts to constitutionally protected opinion, and that the complaint “does not contain enough facts to state any claim against Grisham and Doubleday that is plausible on its face.”
  They also said the plaintiffs should be required to identify specifically each allegedly actionable statement made by each defendant.
  “Their suggestion that The Innocent Man portrays them generally as ‘bad guys’ for their roles in the controversial convictions discussed in the book does not state a claim against Grisham and Doubleday,” the author’s attorneys stated to the court.
  The attorneys also contend that the plaintiffs’ false-light invasion of privacy claim is deficient for similar reasons, with the added argument that a public official can have no expectation of privacy with respect to the performance of public duties.
  
  Bill Peterson recently announced his intention to retire Jan. 2008, after serving some 27 years as district attorney.

Barbara's Journey Toward Justice Wrongful Convictions Blogs and Articles

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Miscarriage of Justice

Well, I only thought I had witnessed the greatest miscarriage of justice in the U.S. (the O.J. Simpson case), but after reading John Grisham's, The Innocent Man and Dennis Fritz's, Journey Toward Justice, I am completely assured there must hang some sort of black cloud over the city of Ada. Perhaps the lack of ozone

read more digg story

NBC Action News Mark Clegg's Report Journey Toward Freedom

I would like to share a great story reported by my friend: Mark Clegg
NBC Action News
Journey to Freedom

Innocent until proven guilty – that is the foundation of the United States' justice system. But can you prove guilt when it doesn't exist?

Depending on how you look at him, Joe Amrine is a lucky guy. He is alive, but at 51 years old he is still serving time for a crime he didn't commit.

"Dying scares me now for real," Amrine said. "I spent all that time on death row."

Dennis Fritz, like Amrine, also spent years in prison for a murder he didn't commit.

"It was a roller coaster ride out of hell every day in that penitentiary," Fritz commented.

Despite nearly losing everything before being exonerated and finally released from prison, both men say they'll never be truly free.

"I have not found any peace," Amrine said. "Like I said, 26 years is a long time to be in prison."

Fritz added, "Every time a cop car would drive by or the telephone would ring and nobody would be on the phone, you know, I would be thinking they were coming after me again."

Burglary, forgery and robbery charges landed Amrine in prison in 1977. Several years into his 15-year sentence, someone murdered another inmate. Amrine got the blame. He was charged, convicted and sentenced to death. Multiple appeals were denied.

"So now, I'm facing the situation where I've got to come to grips with myself – you're going to get executed," Amrine recalled.

All for a crime he didn't commit.

Fritz was charged with the rape and murder of Debbie Sue Carter.

"I had never met her in my life," Fritz said.

He was sentenced to life in prison for a crime he had nothing do with.

Both men spent much of their lives behind bars. After being cleared by DNA evidence, they were released. One man stands free while the other is still imprisoned from within.

"A counselor came to my door and was hollering in through the door," Fritz said.

Amrine added, "So he says, 'You're leaving tomorrow.'"

"I actually just dropped to my knees and just thanked the Lord and was weeping and sobbing," Fritz said.

Amrine said, "I seen all the cameras and stuff and I said, 'Ah yeah, I'm gone.'"

NBC Action News cameras watched Amrine walk out of prison a free man on July 28, 2003. But the road back home has been anything but easy.

"Every day I wake up, I find a new problem," Amrine said of the years since his release. "And they all lead right back to being in prison."

From relationships to crowds; from paying bills to holding a job, it's a struggle for Amrine. He spends much of his time in solitude at his favorite park. And for a time, he fell back into drugs.

"During that I remember going to the park and just sitting there crying because my whole situation… it was just too much," he said.

Fritz lived in fear for two solid years after his release. It was only after the real killer was charged that he found any peace.

"And so in my mind, instead of doing 12 years, I did 14 years," he said.

Eight and a half years later he still has flashbacks.

"Out of the blue... actually, I can see something that will flash me back to a certain incident that happened in the penitentiary," Fritz said.

Fritz found a great deal of peace writing his story in the book Journey Toward Justice. He also worked with author John Grisham in telling the story of his and Ron Williamson's case. "The Innocent Man" became another Grisham best-seller.

"My mission right now, and probably for the rest of my life, is to help wrongfully convicted inmates out," he said.

It's a helping hand that can make a difference for someone like Amrine, who still struggles to find his way.

"I don't see how anybody could be in prison that long for something they didn't do and get out and actually experience the real feel of freedom," Amrine said.

According to the Innocence Project, which helped free Fritz, DNA has cleared 208 people nationwide and led to their release from prison.

Fritz sued and won compensation for the years he spent in prison. Amrine filed a similar lawsuit, but it was thrown out by the courts. He is appealing. The case is expected to come up in January.

But just because you have money doesn't mean all is good. The Oklahoma district attorney who convicted Fritz recently filed a lawsuit against Fritz and Grisham, claiming libel and slander.

Reported by: Mark Clegg
NBC Action News

Clegg's Comments - Share your thoughts with Mark Clegg. He will regularly be adding entries and responding to viewer comments here.

Comments can also be added on my blog, "Barbara's Journey Toward Justice" here

Lee Wayne Hunt I Am Innocent CBS 60 Minutes "Evidence Of Injustice" Video Link

For anyone who missed Lee Wayne Hunt on CBS 60 Minutes, I have posted a link to the CBS video called "Evidence Of Injustice".
Steve Kroft and The Washington Post's John Solomon report on a flawed forensic tool that has been used in hundreds of court cases, possibly landing innocent people behind bars.
The science, called bullet lead analysis, was used by the FBI for 40 years in thousands of cases, and some of the people it helped put in jail may be innocent.

As correspondent Steve Kroft reports, one of them is Lee Wayne Hunt, who is now serving a life sentence for murder in North Carolina.
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Lee Wayne Hunt says he's been behind bars for over 22 years and 6 months, and maintains he's an innocent man. "What I've said from the word get go that I ain't -- never killed nobody. I didn't have nothing to do with this," Hunt tells Kroft.

Hunt was convicted in 1986 of murdering two people in Fayetteville, N.C., based on the testimony of two questionable witnesses and what turned out to be erroneous ballistics testimony from the FBI lab.

For years, the FBI believed that lead in bullets had unique chemical signatures, and that by breaking them down and analyzing them, it was possible to match bullets, not only to a single batch of ammunition coming out of a factory, but to a single box of bullets. And that is what the FBI did in the case of Lee Wayne Hunt, tying a bullet fragment found where the murders took place to a box of bullets the prosecutors linked to Hunt.

"I put it exactly the way it sounded to me, and the way that I believe it to be," Hunt says. "He said that this box of bullets is the same box of bullets that was used to kill these people, made on, about the same time."

"I think everybody in the courtroom assumed that this was valid evidence," Richard Rosen, Hunt's attorney, says.

Asked how important he thinks this was to his client's conviction, Rosen says, "I thought it was very important to our client's conviction. It was the single piece of physical evidence corroborating their story. And it came from, you know, it came from the mountaintop."

The FBI first used bullet lead analysis while investigating the assassination of John F. Kennedy, trying to match pieces of bullets discovered at Dealey Plaza with bullets found in Lee Harvey Oswald's rifle. Read more Here

CBS 60 Minutes video called "Evidence Of Injustice".
Video URL
http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/i_video/main500251.shtml?id=3518353n
Copy the link above to share video.

Also on the video is Barry Scheck On The FBI
Barry Scheck, a director of the Innocence Project, talks about the FBI's duty to notify defendants.
The non-profit group The Innocence Project has helped free more than 200 people who were wrongly convicted -- some because of misleading "expert" testimony based on inadequate "science."
How many more innocent people are waiting to be rescued from prison.


Read More from Washington Post here
FBI's Forensic Test Full of Holes
Lee Wayne Hunt is one of hundreds of defendants whose convictions are in question now that FBI forensic evidence has been discredited.

By John Solomon
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, November 18, 2007;
Hundreds of defendants sitting in prisons nationwide have been convicted with the help of an FBI forensic tool that was discarded more than two years ago. But the FBI lab has yet to take steps to alert the affected defendants or courts, even as the window for appealing convictions is closing, a joint investigation by The Washington Post and "60 Minutes" has found.

Update
Silent Injustice
Bullet-matching Science Debunked

John Solomon
Staff Writer, The Washington Post
Monday, November 19, 2007; 12:00 PM
At noon ET on Monday, Nov. 19 Washington Post staff writer John Solomon responded to reader questions and comments about "Silent Injustice" his 6-month investigation with 60 MINUTES correspondent Steve Kroft into a flawed science used in the convictions of thousands of defendants, scores of whom may be innocent.

To keep up to date on the latest investigation news and projects in the Post, read the Washington Post Investigations blog.

60 Minutes Evidence Of Injustice - Flawed Forensics and Wrongful Convictions.

Watch CBS 60 Minutes Sunday, at 7 p.m., for a special joint report from 60 Minutes’ Steve Kroft and the Washington Post’s John Solomon on a flawed forensic tool used to convict hundreds of defendants, dozens of whom may be innocent.
In their first joint investigation, 60 Minutes and The Washington Post on Sunday, Nov. 18, will examine the government's failure to notify defendants nationwide that they were convicted with the help of flawed forensic science or inaccurate testimony.

60 Minutes correspondent Steve Kroft, producer Ira Rosen and the Post's John Solomon report on scores of cases where defendants may not have received a fair trial because prosecution scientists overstated their conclusions or used faulty statistics.

What's more, none of those defendants has been informed that they may be entitled to have their cases reviewed. The results of their six-month investigation will appear Sunday, Nov. 18, in The Washington Post and on 60 Minutes, airing at 7 p.m. ET/PT. The case files and other information gathered during the joint investigation will also be posted on the Post's Web site.

Read more
CBS 60 Minutes web site .
Post Comments HERE

Dennis Fritz Guest Speaker Missourians to Abolish the Death Penalty Kansas City Chapter

Dennis Fritz will be guest speaker at the Annual Meeting
for Missourians to Abolish the Death Penalty Kansas City Chapter
Date Nov. 15, 2007 - Location - First United Methodist Church on the Independence Square, 400 W. Maple, Independence, MO 64050.
Time 7:00 P.M.
Dennis Fritz, Exonerated after spending 12 years with a life sentence in Ada, Oklahoma. Thanks to help from the Innocence Project of New York, Fritz was granted a new trial, found innocent and freed from prison in 1999.
Mr Fritz is a Board member for the Kansas City Chapter of Missourians to Abolish the Death Penalty and author of Journey Toward Justice.
Dennis Fritz appeared on "Dateline," "Hannity and Colmes" and other national TV and radio shows.

A History of Missourians to Abolish the Death Penalty
From MADP website:

A loosely structured statewide abolition coalition has been active in Missouri since at least 1987 when Missouri passed legislation to permit lethal injection and prepared its first execution since re-instating the death penalty in 1977. Then, MADP was an umbrella coalition comprised of regional death penalty groups in St. Louis and Kansas City, secular organizations, faith-based groups and individuals.

As we grew over the following decades, we realized that the structure of MADP was too loose to work effectively to achieve our goals. Over several months, we engaged in a process that shaped the separate organizations and individuals already engaged into a cohesive group. MADP became incorporated and received 501 (c) 3 not-for profit status in late 2005. We have approved three chapter groups and eleven affiliate groups to be members of MADP. We have a working board, a clear process for decision-making, and an active committee structure to participate in the work. We invite you to join us as we work for abolition.

Photos John Grisham, Author, Dennis Fritz, Author Scott Turow and Cedric Willis at Mississippi Innocence Project Dinner Fundraiser
Photos of John Grisham, Author, Dennis Fritz, Author Scott Turow and Cedric Willis at Mississippi Innocence Project Dinner Fundraiser Photos provided by Dennis Fritz with his permission.Authors John Grisham, Dennis Fritz and Scott Turow and exonerated Cedric Willis attended a dinner together in order to raise money for the Mississippi Innocence Project at the Ole Miss law school. John Grisham, Dennis Fritz and Scott Turow have supported similar projects in law schools across the country.

John Grisham author, "The Innocent Man," profiling a man wrongfully convicted and freed years later with the help of several attorneys and the Innocence Project.

Dennis Fritz author of "Journey Toward Justice". Thanks to help from the Innocence Project of New York, Fritz was granted a new trial, found innocent and freed from prison in 1999.

Scott Turow is the author of "Presumed Innocent".

All three books are a Bestseller here Amazon.com .

For more exclusive photos from The Mississippi Innocence Project Dinner Fundraiser provided by Dennis Fritz with his permission, please visit my other blog called "Photos Mississippi Innocence Project"

Here.

DA Bill Peterson Who Is Suing John Grisham Dennis Fritz Robert Mayer Barry Scheck and Their Publishers Retiring January

Bill Peterson district attorney for the 22nd district that includes Pontotoc, Seminole and Hughes counties, in Oklahoma said he plans to retire after Jan. 1. after 27 years.
In Sept. this year less then 2 months ago, Bill Peterson decided to sue John Grisham and Doubleday Dell Publishing Group.
The lawsuit also names:
•Dennis Fritz, the author of “Journey Toward Justice.”
•Robert Mayer, author of “The Dreams of Ada.”
•Barry Scheck, one of Fritz’s lawyers who helped exonerate him, and a co-author of “Actual Innocence,” that discusses the case of Williamson and Fritz.
•The Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, publisher of “The Innocent Man” and “Actual Innocence.”
•Random House Inc., which owns Doubleday Dell.
•Broadway Books, publisher of “The Dreams of Ada.”
•Seven Locks Press and/or James C. Riordan, publisher of “Journey Toward Justice.”The lawsuit, filed in federal court, alleges civil conspiracy, libel, placing a person in a false light and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Peterson says the defendants "coordinated their efforts to launch a massive joint defamatory attack" on him.

William N. Peterson got murder convictions on two men, Dennis Fritz and Ron Williamson, who did 12 years in prison before they were cleared by DNA evidence. Fritz and Williamson's experiences are chronicled in two books, John Grisham's first nonfiction book, "The Innocent Man," and Dennis Fritz's, book, "Journey Toward Justice". Bill Peterson got questionable convictions on two other men, Tommy Ward and Karl Fontenot, in a separate murder case.
They are still in prison.
Robert Mayer, is the author of “The Dreams of Ada.” A book written primary about the murder of Denice Haraway and the subsequent investigation, prosecution and conviction of Tommy Ward and Karl Fontenot. The other Plaintiff in the lawsuit is Gary Rogers, a former agent for the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation.Bill Peterson and Gary Rogers were instrumental in the conviction of Ron Williamson and Dennis Fritz in the murder of Debbie Sue Carter in Ada, Oklahoma in 1982.

"It is something I've been thinking about for a while and came to the conclusion that it is time,” Bill Peterson" told the Ada Evening News . "I am 64 years old and came to the realization it's time to go to another phase in my life.”

UPDATE SEPT.2008 - Click Here For Update - CASE DISMISSED

Photo Dennis Fritz John Grisham Scott Turow Event Benefit Mississippi Innocence Project

Photo Barbara Gauntt/The Clarion-Ledger
Exoneree Dennis Fritz (from left), joins authors John Grisham and Scott Turow to speak with media before a benefit for the Mississippi Innocence Project at the Hilton Hotel in Jackson Monday evening.
Fritz was exonerated in 1999 after he contacted The Innocence Project and DNA testing proved him innocent of the 1982 rape and murder of a woman.

John Grisham calls Dennis Fritz's story compelling and fascinating. From the photo it looks like Scott Turow also finds Dennis Fritz interesting. Three great authors I must add.

Gregory Wells Bowman thought Dennis was one of the most moving speakers at inaugural fundraising dinner for the newly-established Mississippi Innocence Project.
Gregory Wells Bowman
Associate Professor of Law
Director, International Law Center
Gregory Wells Bowman has a blog called "Law Career Blog"
I highly recommend Dennis Fritz's Book "Journey Toward Justice" to order click On Amazon Here
International Orders Order Here "Journey Toward Justice" by Dennis Fritz From Around The World click on here Amazon International Just type in Journey Toward Justice Author Dennis Fritz