The Innocent Man: The Book that Changed My Opinion on Capital Punishment

So here I was, ready to spend my day flying from New York to Los Angeles via Washington D.C., when I realized that my MP3 player batteries were running low and I had nothing to read. I quickly stopped in a tiny book store at Albany International Airport and grabbed something by the first author I recognized, John Grisham. The book was called The Innocent Man.

As a middle-aged father of four, I have not had much time to read novels and I most certainly had never heard of The Innocent Man, but years ago I used to be quite the Grisham fan so I decided to give it a shot. I read The Firm, A Time to Kill, and several other Grisham best-sellers before they were turned into movies, but I had no clue what type of legal thriller I'd be in for with this book. It wasn't until I sat down in the waiting area that I noticed I had picked up a true crime story.

The Innocent Man is Grisham's account of the investigation, trial, conviction, appeal, re-trial, and ultimate vindication of two innocent men in the small town of Ada, Oklahoma. Grisham opens the book describing the strange course of events that lead to the murder of a young woman by the name of Debbie Carter. In this opening chapter, Grisham does a great job of pointing the finger towards the man truly responsible for the crime.

In the next chapter, Grisham quickly jumps to describing the childhood and upbringing of Ron Williamson, the hometown baseball hero who would eventually be wrongfully convicted in the murder of Debbie Carter. In The Innocent Man, Grisham does a great job of forcing the reader to develop a connection to Williamson that eventually leads to empathy as his life begins to fall apart. Grisham takes you through the development of Williamson as an athlete, his struggles as a minor league ball player, and the alcoholism that sets in as his dreams fall apart.

The Innocent Man then goes on to describe how the Ada PD took the liberty of filling in gaps so to speak once they had decided that their fallen hero, Williamson, must be responsible for the murder of Carter. Grisham shows how the police ignored the true killer because of his relationship with the police department and how they focused on Williamson despite a lack of evidence.

Grisham describes in The Innocent Man, a trial where the prosecution lacks substance and the publicly appointed defense attorney makes obvious blunders, possibly due to a lack time or effort put into the case. He brings you through the shock of a "guilty" verdict despite a lack of evidence.

Following conviction, Grisham shows over ten years lost for Williamson and Dennis Fritz, the other party wrongfully convicted in Debbie Carter's murder. The Innocent Man vividly describes the mental deterioration that Williamson experiences while being abused in prison and it takes you through the suspense of having his request for appeal granted only days before his scheduled execution.

Grisham also takes time in The Innocent Man to show that this is not the first or only incident in this town where an innocent man is convicted of a crime due to aggressive and unethical tactics that are used in legal proceedings.

In the end, Williams and Fritz, are released, though it is done in a way that does not attach double jeopardy and the DA's office refuses to clear them as suspects. Though free, these men never fully get their lives back.

The Innocent Man had a profound effect on my own personal beliefs regarding capital punishment. Growing up in New York during the time period where capital punishment was re-instated, I had been fed all of the propaganda for the death penalty and I truly believed in it. The Innocent Man made me realize that whether or not you believe in "an eye for an eye," there is no guarantee that the man with the needle in his arm is truly your murderer and that sometimes the public outcry for justice can cause "the people" to find guilt in the wrong man.

If you are considering reading The Innocent Man, don't worry about the fact that you know the outcome. Reading this book, you will already know who the killer is, who's convicted for the crime, and what will eventually happen to the wrongfully accused. That's okay. Unlike some of Grisham's other stories, The Innocent Man isn't about the suspense you feel as you await the ending; The Innocent Man is about the emotions you feel as you experience the journey.