Journey Toward Justice

Dee · **Posted:** Tue Jul 31, 2007 12:46 pm

Dennis Fritz is a man who needs to be noticed more. His Book changed my views about the Death Penalty. He is the Other Innocent Man in John Grisham's The Innocent Man, he wrote a book called Journey Toward Justice Published by Seven Locks Press. A Companion book to The Innocent Man. Dennis Fritz writes his own story about unwarranted prosecution and wrongful conviction and is a true crime. Endorsed on Jacket by John Grisham which he states as Compelling and Fascinating.
Journey Toward Justice is a testimony to the Triumph of the human Spirit and is a Memoir. Dennis Fritz was wrongfully convicted of rape and murder after a swift trail.
The only thing that saved him from the Death Penalty was a lone vote from a juror. Dennis Fritz was the other Innocent man mentioned in John Grisham's Book. which mainly is about Ronnie Williamson, Dennis Fritz's co-defendant. Both were exonerated after spending 12 years in prison.

The real killer was one of the Prosecution's Key Witness. Read about why he went on a special diet of his while in prison, amazing and shocking. Dennis Fritz's Story of unwarranted prosecution and wrongful conviction needs to be
heard. Read about how he wrote hundreds of letters and appellate briefs in his own defense and immersed himself in an intense study of law.
He was a school teacher and a ordinary man whose wife was brutally murdered in 1975 by a deranged 17 year old neighbor. On May 8th 1987, Five years after Debbie Sue Carter's rape and murder he was home with his young daughter and put under arrest, handcuffed and on his way to jail on charges of rape and murder.

After 10 years in prison he discovered The Innocence Project, a non-profit legal organization. With the aid of Barry Scheck and DNA evidence Dennis Fritz was exonerated on April 15,1999 Since then, it has been a long hard road filled with twist and turns and now on his Journey Toward Justice. He never blamed the Lord and solely relied on his faith in God to make it through.
He waited for God's time and never gave up.
Please view my blog http://barbarasblogspot.blogspot.com Here for more on Dennis Fritz and many issues in his book.

Marion · **Posted:** Tue Jul 31, 2007 8:54 pm

Journey toward justice

Former Ada resident pens novel of false rape, murder conviction and exoneration

By Melissa A. Wabnitz
Norman Transcript Staff Writer
October 17, 2006

Years of therapy and patience eased the emotional trauma Dennis Fritz experienced during his 11-year stint in prison. But the memories, particularly the moments just prior to his wrongful arrest and charge for an Ada waitress' murder and a rape he didn't commit, remain.

Life in Hominy's medium-security, Connor's Correctional Facility, wasn't peachy. But the transition from a regular life centered around his young daughter, Elizabeth, following his wife's 1982 murder, to being handed a wrongful life sentence, naturally, took its toll on Fritz.

"It was a living hell. Just a living hell, but that time was hardest on my daughter, Elizabeth. I did not allow her to visit me during my time in the penitentiary," he said during a recent visit to Norman, promoting his book, "Journey Toward Justice."

Novelist John Grisham recently released a book detailing the case of Ronnie Williamson, Fritz's friend, who was also charged with the waitress' murder and sentenced to execution.

"The prison years were very difficult. Extremely harsh. There were a lot of things that I've seen that really woke me up," Fritz said. "I witnessed a couple of murders and heard of many, many others, for instance. It was a place that you could never truly relax in. It was always very dangerous. Extremely dangerous."

Even after his 1999 exoneration, paranoia of police and a fear of crowds haunted him, as did the realization that right here in America, an innocent man can indeed be found guilty.

"After I got out, I had to deal with a lot of post traumatic stress," Fritz said. "So many things were different -- like hotel keys were not made of metal anymore, gas pumps were changed, so many little things... It was a very stressful three to four years following my release. I just felt so alienated. Like I wasn't a part of society."

While in prison, Fritz, a former middle school science teacher, turned into a self-styled lawyer.

"I lived, breathed, walked, talked and dreamed about my freedom, and bringing back my case through my own endeavors," he said. After several appeals to the case were denied, Fritz contacted the Innocence Project, a legal organization dedicated to providing legal counsel, and in Fritz's case, DNA testing.

Though police claimed hair evidence from the Ada murder scene had been analyzed and matched Fritz and his friend, Ronnie Williamson, numerous outside DNA tests sought by Norman lawyer, Mark Barrett, of the Innocence Project, revealed otherwise.

The real killer, Barrett said, was the very same man who had worked with overzealous prosecutors to convict Fritz and Williamson of the murder. Fritz and Williamson were exonerated and released April 15, 1999. In 2001, they filed a civil suit against several parties involved in their conviction and settled for an undisclosed sum of money.

To this day, Fritz said the prosecutors and district attorney in Ada have yet to apologize for their erroneous convictions.

"From the moment he was released on, starting in the courtroom, at the time, Dennis has been speaking out," Barrett said. "All of us have just started talking about the case. It's been a project of his, in a way, and his job since he's been out, has been to enlighten people about what happened and to change things so it doesn't happen to more people."

Working as an advocate for the Innocent Project and writing a book, recently released, Fritz said has "all been a part of the healing."

Currently, Fritz is touring 35 cities, including Norman and Ada, promoting "Journey Toward Justice" and speaking on behalf of the Innocence Project. When he's not pursuing such endeavors, he spends his time in Kansas City, Mo. where he lives with his mother, gardens and "tries to have a somewhat normal life."

Marion · **Posted:** Tue Jul 31, 2007 8:55 pm

Exonerated man, victim’s family push for reform

JACLYN HOUGHTON
CNHI News Service
April 09, 2007

OKLAHOMA CITY — As he takes the stage in front of law students throughout the country, his scars are exposed.

He tells students about the 12 years he lived in prison for a murder he did not commit. He hopes his story, detailed in a book he published last year, will help the future lawyers to not make the same mistake with another person’s life.

“I’ll always feel the effects of what a false conviction caused,” said Dennis Fritz, who lives in Kansas City, Mo. “It’s healed, but the scar’s still there.”

On Dec. 8, 1982, a 21-year-old Ada woman, Debra Sue Carter, was raped and killed after she got off work at the Coachlight Club in Ada.

Fritz, now 57, and friend Ron Williamson were arrested for the crime five years later, but were freed from prison in 1999 after DNA evidence matched another man.

The case is detailed in John Grisham’s non-fiction bestseller “The Innocent Man,” and is the impetus for a bill introduced in the Oklahoma Legislature.

The bill was not heard this session.

Family members of Carter, as well as Fritz and representatives of the New York-based Innocence Project that helped free Williamson and Fritz, are pushing for state commissions that would look at what mistakes were made in cases where convicts later were exonerated.

“It’s not about placing the blame. It’s about finding out what happened so it doesn’t happen to other families,” said Christy Sheppard of Ada, who is Carter’s cousin.

Set free

The 200th DNA-related exoneration is slated to come this month from among the some 250 cases in the works nationally. Eric Ferrero, communication director for the Innocence Project, said it is a time to pause.

“These exonerations individually and collectively are a learning moment for all of us,” he said.

There have been eight exonerations in Oklahoma, according to the project, a nonprofit, public policy and national litigation organization that deals solely with DNA cases. It began in 1992 when DNA technology was surfacing and law professors Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld began allowing law students at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University to look into cases.

Law students worked on cases for several years and about four years ago the separate nonprofit project was set up. It still is linked to the school.

Fritz said he spent about 11 years working on his own case in prison, then discovered the Innocence Project. Eventually, evidence gathered in the Carter murder case was tested for DNA and Fritz and Williamson were cleared.

“I was on my own doing my own case,” Fritz said. “Everybody had jumped off my ship except my family.”

Now he is using a book he recently published, “Journey Toward Justice,” as a vehicle to bring awareness of mistakes that can be made in cases. He said he travels the United States speaking to law schools and also hopes to reach prosecutors and judges.

The false conviction of Fritz and Williamson also affected the lives of Carter’s family members.

Sheppard said the many lawsuits during the past 24 years have taken a physical toll on her aunt, Carter’s mother. Sheppard said she decided she wanted to do something to ensure the same mistakes are not made in other cases.

A woman in Wisconsin who had been raped and mistakenly had put the wrong man in prison for 18 years started an Innocence Commission in Wisconsin to examine the mistakes that were made in cases of false convictions. This woman inspired Sheppard to contact Sen. Susan Paddack, D-Ada, and pursue a similar commission two years ago.

Senate Bill 1471, authored by Paddack, would have created an “Innocence Commission” last year and was passed in the Senate with a 25-20 vote, but did not receive a hearing in the House. Paddack authored a similar bill this session, Senate Bill 940, but it did not even get a hearing in the Senate this time around.

Paddack said last year the bill was criticized as being “soft on crime.”

“I think it’s hard on crime because we want the right person in jail,” she said.

In other tragedies such as plane crashes, she said, investigations are conducted to find out what happened. She does not understand why the same would not apply to wrongful convictions.

Sen. James Williamson, R-Tulsa, and Sen. Richard Lerblance, D-Hartshorne, are the co-chairs in the Senate Judiciary Committee, which was where the bill was assigned this year.

Both senators voted for the bill the previous year, but did not hear the bill this session.

Sen. James Williamson said he had “no objection to it being heard this time. I didn’t refuse to hear it.”

He said he cannot recall why the bill was not heard but supported the measure because “I want to know what mistakes are being made so that innocent people are not” going to jail.

Calls to Lerblance for comment were unreturned.

Sheppard said she will continue to fight for the commission as a way to honor her cousin.

Review process

Ferrero said only about 10 percent of cases have the evidence needed to conduct DNA tests. He said the biggest cause of mistakes in cases — about 75 percent — deals with eyewitness misidentification. About 60 percent of the cases had mistakes in scientific evidence, about 25 percent had false confessions and about 15 percent resulted from problems with jailhouse snitches.

“Debbie’s case is like the poster child” for many of these problem areas, Sheppard said.

The Innocence Project is working on the case of Curtis Edward McCarty of Moore, who was convicted and sentenced to death for the 1982 slaying of Pamela Kay Willis.

The evidence used to convict McCarty has been questioned because forensic testimony came from former Oklahoma City Police Department chemist Joyce Gilchrist. Gilchrist was terminated from the department in 2001 for allegedly doctoring trial evidence.

Fritz said he would like to see more communication between investigators and prosecutors and “there needs to be a greater monitoring process.”

Grisham’s book has helped in the fight for reform, Ferrero said.

“It helps to raise awareness about these issues and to have it focus on a real, actual case is very important,” he said.

Ferrero said Oklahoma does have laws in place to provide monetary compensation of up to $175,000 for those wrongly convicted, and also has a law that compels the preservation of evidence in cases. He said this is a start but more is needed.
Sheppard said Grisham’s book did offer an accurate reflection of the case, but has not helped to convince state legislators to take action and form a commission.

Ronald Williamson, freed from prison in 1999 after being wrongly convicted in 1988, died in 2004. Grisham writes in “The Innocent Man,” that he had never heard of Williamson until he read his obituary in the New York Times two days after Williamson was buried.

Journey Toward Justice

Who is online