[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----OKLA., USA, IND., WIS.

[Rick Halperin]

Oct. 7



OKLAHOMA:

BOOK REVIEW----Grisham skillfully lays down law in true story of injustice

The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town----By John Grisham,
Doubleday, 368 pp., $28.95


In his 1st foray into nonfiction, novelist John Grisham (``The Firm," "The
Broker") has crafted a legal thriller every bit as suspenseful and
fast-paced as his best - selling fiction.

Grisham skillfully tells the tragic true story of Ron Williamson, who
became a hero in Ada, Okla., when he was drafted by baseball's Oakland
Athletics in 1971 as the 41st overall pick. Williamson dreamed of becoming
the next Mickey Mantle, but in a pro career that spanned 6 years, he never
advanced beyond the minor leagues. In his rookie season, Williamson batted
a mediocre .265, then a dismal .147 the next season.

Although Williamson's baseball dreams came crashing down, he refused to
acknowledge that. He drowned his disappointments in alcohol and began
showing early signs of deteriorating mental health. After his beauty-queen
wife divorced him, Williamson seemed to unravel. Over six months in 1978,
he twice faced rape charges, but was found not guilty. A depressed,
alcohol-soaked Williamson moved back to Ada, sleeping on his mother's
couch. He became the town drifter, a has-been who haunted local watering
holes telling tales of his thwarted baseball dreams. Then, on Dec. 8,
1982, young cocktail waitress Debbie Sue Carter was found raped and
murdered in her Ada apartment.

Although Ada police had no evidence connecting Williamson to the Carter
murder, and despite strong evidence exonerating him and pointing to
another Ada man, they made Williamson their prime suspect, along with his
drinking buddy Dennis Fritz.

The pressure on Ada police was turned up considerably after a 2nd young
woman was murdered. In an anxiety-filled atmosphere, Ada police used
psychological coercion to force confessions from 2 young men, winning
dubious convictions on this 2nd murder. Then in 1986, they arrested
Williamson and Fritz for the Carter murder.

Grisham describes the evidence presented at Williamson's 1987 murder trial
as a combination of junk science and patently unreliable testimony from
jailhouse snitches hoping to parley false testimony into plea bargains. A
prosecution expert told the jury that Williamson's hair "matched" hair
found at the murder scene. Grisham shows exactly why this expert testimony
was both highly unreliable and misleading. Evidence possessed by the
prosecutors tending to show Williamson's innocence was never revealed to
his lawyer, who was literally blind. Williamson's lawyer never even
brought up his client's questionable mental competency. Most egregiously,
the only witness who testified that Williamson had ever seen Carter was a
felon who did so at the "suggestion" of Ada police. This same witness
would later be convicted of murdering Carter.

Williamson was convicted and sentenced to death. He'd spend the next dozen
years on death row, seeking a new trial while his mental condition
worsened. A few days before his scheduled 1994 execution, a federal court
granted a stay. After reviewing Williamson's trial record and finding it
riddled with errors, the federal court ordered a new trial. As the process
moved slowly forward, a bombshell struck in 1999. DNA testing was
performed and the results proved that Williamson had absolutely no
connection to Carter or the murder scene.

On April 15, 1999, Ron Williamson was set free. He later sued in federal
court for wrongful conviction and received a large financial settlement.
Yet Grisham's ending is decidedly not a happy one. Williamson continued to
drink and confront serious mental health issues. In his final 5 years,
Williamson moved 17 times. He died in 2004 from liver problems. "An
Innocent Man" is a page-turning and chilling descent into one innocent
man's Kafkaesque nightmare of injustice and madness.

(source: Boston Globe)

****************************

Required reading


The end of innocence----John Grishams nonfiction debut, The Innocent Man,
reaches a chilling verdict on the US justice system. Marcel Berlins weighs
the evidence


THE INNOCENT MAN----by John Grisham, Century, 18.99; 368pp


JOHN GRISHAMS first entry into nonfiction after 18 bestselling novels is,
on the surface, puzzling. It not unknown for writers of thrillers and
crime fiction to turn their forensic knowledge and skills to the solving
of real-life crimes and the reversal of miscarriages of justice. Patricia
Cornwell spent much time and millions of dollars to try to prove
(unconvincingly) that Jack the Ripper was the English painter Walter
Sickert. Arthur Conan Doyle espoused the causes of 2 wrongly convicted men
Oscar Slater and George Edalji.

James Ellroy (author of The Black Dahlia) has written of his personal
quest to discover his mothers murderer. In Ultimate Punishment Scott Turow
(Presumed Innocent) inveighed against the death penalty.

But Grisham has chosen to tell a story that does not involve himself in
any way. He is not a detective attempting to find out the truth about the
murder for which The Innocent Man of the title was convicted. He is not
part of a campaign to draw attention to a gross miscarriage of justice,
because that had been officially admitted long before Grisham came on to
the scene. He has made no startling new discoveries nor provided any
dramatic new insights.

Moreover, the murder in question created no great stir or publicity other
than in Oklahoma, where it was committed. Nor did the errors in the
justice system that followed. It did not involve anyone famous except, in
a small way and only locally, the unlikeable accused. So little impression
did the case make that Grisham had never heard of it until, 2 years ago,
he read, by chance, an obituary in The New York Times, headline d: "Ronald
Williamson, Freed from Death Row, dies at 51." Intrigued, he researched
further.

So why is The Innocent Man, shorn of the usual trappings of successful
books about miscarriages of justices, worth reading? Why do a seedy
murder, an unsympathetic accused, no surprises, no glamour, no
celebrities, a lack of new evidence and a known conclusion add up to an
absorbing book? First, the small, sad tale of Ron Williamson is a huge
indictment of the US criminal justice system at every level, from the
first investigation of a crime to its frequent conclusion  capital
punishment. Secondly, Grishams talent for storytelling, which has made him
such a popular novelist, allows him to turn the commonplace into the
gripping.

Ada is a small rural town in the Oklahoma Bible Belt, once an oil centre
and now full of factories and small businesses. The murder victim, Debbie
Carter, was last seen on her way home after an evening at a bar where she
worked as a cocktail waitress. Her body was found in her bedroom the next
morning. She had been strangled after a fierce struggle with her
assailant. This was in 1982, long before DNA became the polices most
important investigative tool.

There were fingerprints and a few samples of hair.

Williamson was a suspect from the start. Once it was thought that he might
become Adas most famous citizen, for a different reason. An exceptionally
gifted baseball player, he was noticed by several clubs and had reason to
believe that he might one day play in the national leagues. He never quite
made it, a combination of an injured arm and a dissolute life ending his
ambitions and driving him back to Ada, where he became an embarrassing
drunk and woman-chaser.

Dirty, rude, prone to strange behaviour, keeping weird hours, still living
with his mother in a house near the victim's, and with a minor history of
sexual assault, he fitted the police's idea of who the murderer should be.

The drawback was that there was no evidence whatsoever against him. The
crime remained unsolved for 5 years. In 1987, for reasons still obscure,
Williamson, and an acquaintance, equally innocent, were charged with
Debbie Carters murder. What emerges from Grishams meticulous account is a
combination of lying witnesses, incompetent or corrupt police
investigations, bad and lazy defence lawyers, third-rate prosecutors,
wrong scientific evidence, sheer bad luck (his highly respected
church-going mother, his only alibi, had died) and, it has to be admitted,
the accused's own disruptive behaviour in court. He was convicted and
sentenced to death.

It took 12 years for the injustice to be corrected. Williamson was freed
from death row 5 days before the date set for his lethal injection, but it
was not until 1999 that he finally left prison, fully exonerated, a
beneficiary of DNA science that proved his innocence conclusively. He
drank himself to death 5 years later.

Grisham was shocked by what his research revealed. He had been "exposed to
the world of wrongful convictions, something that I, even as a former
lawyer, had never spent much time thinking about."

What happened in The Innocent Man, he now realises, happens all the time,
everywhere in the US. In the small towns, the police are often untrained
and unchecked. Murders and rapes are still shocking events and people want
justice, and quickly. They, citizens and jurors, trust their authorities
to behave properly. When they don't, the result is Ron Williamson . . ."
Grisham has come rather late to this conclusion.

There is little in the Williamson case that will surprise anyone with any
knowledge of the workings of the justice system in small-town (or even big
city) America.

No matter. The Innocent Man is a sincere, readable, lively book that
raises important questions. It will not achieve the readership of Grishams
novels; but it will have performed a greater service.

John Grisham appears at THE TIMES Cheltenham Literature Festival today.
Call 01242 227979 www.cheltenhamfestivals.com

Grisham Case history

THE LIFE---- Born in Arkanas in 1955, Grisham studied at the University of
Mississippi School of Law. After graduating he worked for nearly ten years
in a small-town general law practice before being elected as a Democrat to
the Mississippi House of Representatives in 1983.

A year later he began writing his 1st novel, inspired by a harrowing child
rape case that he witnessed. He spent 3 years finishing A Time to Kill,
and has written a further 18 novels. After the success of his 2nd, The
Firm, he gave up his practice to write full time. He now lives with his
wife and 2 children in Mississippi and Virginia.

ON BECOMING A LAWYER ---- "My decision to become a lawyer was irrevocably
sealed when I realised that my father hated the legal profession."

ON BECOMING AN AUTHOR ----"Writing a first novel takes so much effort,
with such little promise of result or reward, that it must necessarily be
a labour of love bordering on madness."

(source: The (UK) Times)






USA:

Learning to forgive----There are different kinds and different paths for
different people


The man who killed or wounded 10 Amish girls earlier this week has become
the devil incarnate for some observers but an object of forgiveness for
those he hurt the most deeply.

Mary Altaffer, Associated PressThe funeral procession for 7-year-old Naomi
Rose Ebersol makes its way down Georgetown Road in Georgetown, Pa.
Ebersole was killed in Monday's shootings along with several other young
girls at an Amish school in Nickel Mines, Pa. How does that happen?

It's a question many Americans have asked themselves, as images of
horse-drawn buggies and their sad-but-peaceful-looking occupants rolled
across our TV screens while reporters and commentators struggled to
understand the dichotomy of such senseless violence  without the
predictable rage.

After nearly a week of what one Amish bishop called "our 9/11," an author
who knows the community told The Associated Press: "They know their
children are going to heaven. They know their children are innocent ...
and they know that they will join them in death," said Gertrude
Huntington, a Michigan researcher who has written a book about children in
Amish society.

"The hurt is very great," Huntington said. "But they don't balance the
hurt with hate."

Does that response come simply from self-control or community expectation,
or is it something deeper in their religious mandate that extends mercy
without justice before the deep grieving process has even begun?

Fred Luskin, director and co-founder of the Stanford Forgiveness Project,
said in studying forgiveness over time, "I think there has to be some
processing of the grief response before one can come to a genuine
experience of forgiveness. On some level what you are forgiving is your
own outrage," which those who have been through such trauma know can often
come much later, after the initial shock has worn off.

But that said, "parts of what they are doing are so laudatory and separate
from even forgiveness, which is that they are not punishing this person's
family," he told the Deseret Morning News. In reaching out to killer
Charles Roberts' family and even inviting them to the victims' funerals,
the Amish are more in keeping with "what Jesus would do" than most.

Chris Hondros, Getty ImagesFlowers, notes and other tokens of sympathy lie
on the side of Mine Road in Nickel Mines, Pa., where a gunman killed
several children and himself. Yet he wonders about "the inner quality of
that forgiveness. I don't know how you can do that without feeling some of
the pain and struggling with your own loss and woundedness," though he
said that processing such feelings "doesn't have to take as long as most
people do.

"They are telling us that (their) entire belief system and orientation is
to God's word and a sense that (humans) don't assign justice  that God
does that. It's almost like playing a game of Monopoly," where players
acknowledge that "we don't set the rules but God does. And his rules are
that things happen to us that we don't understand. Our job is to be kind.
They're showing the value and power of that kind of conditioning," while
those more concerned about justice or even vengeance "are showing the
value and power of our secular conditioning."

Luskin said he's not implying that it's right to resent or hold a grudge,
"but we assume that as a default. People who have this seamless religious
experience have a different response to it." The Amish reaction "would not
be what I would teach. In the world I live in, people have to go through
some level of grieving and suffering to find the place in themselves that
transcends that.

"The Amish have a ready mechanism for that in a deep and absolute faith.
It seems like a better choice if you are going to have to pick one  but
it's never the way I go out and teach."

In his book, "Forgive for Good," Luskin delineates the difference between
forgiveness and reconciliation, saying one does not prescribe the other.
"You do not have to forget what happened. Forgiveness does not mean you
lie down and become a doormat when you are hurt."

Rather, it means people find peace despite pain and mistreatment, and take
responsibility for how they feel. In forgiving, people learn to take
painful events less personally, to make better decisions for the future
and to feel better  both physically and spiritually.

Luskin has conducted 4 different studies that show people who are taught
to forgive become "less angry, more hopeful, less depressed, less anxious
and less stressed," which led to greater physical well-being. Those who
forgive are also "more confident, and they learn to like themselves more."

There is no evidence the Amish are extending forgiveness for such reasons,
but Luskin doesn't think their expressions of forgiveness come simply out
of being in a temporary state of shock, either. "The only thing I would
wonder is if it belies some of the discomfort some community members are
feeling."

Kristina Coop Gordon, associate professor of clinical psychology at the
University of Tennessee, agrees. She's done research on the tendency of
religious women to be more forgiving toward their partners in domestic
violence cases than secular women.

"Those who are religious do have much more of a mandate or feel more
pressure to forgive than those who are not. I have data showing those who
endorse high levels of religious attendance and consider themselves very
religious are more willing to forgive." That conclusion comes out of a
simple measure of forgiveness, but when more complex measures are applied,
religious women "don't always score higher," she said.

"What that suggests is that when they feel the pressure to forgive, they
may say they did, but they may not have gone through the process that
those who study it think they need to go through."

She has no data on the Amish community in particular, so Gordon said she
has been scratching her head as she considers their expressions of
forgiveness. "The only thing I could think of was they are such a
different society from the rest of us, and could this possibly be that
they could have these feelings?"

In the normal population, "I would be very skeptical of it. But they have
a very communal approach to the world, it seems, and they're not so
individualistic as most of us are. So part of me wonders if they are not
better able to do this than the rest of us because they have more of a
communal spirit."

Because it's such a different society and their faith commitment runs so
deep, "I wonder if there is not something operating here that's different
from most of our responses. The more I study forgiveness, there are
different kinds and different paths for different people."

Elaine Emmi, a local Quaker and president of the state's Interfaith
Roundtable, said she sees quite a bit of similarity between the Amish and
the Quakers in dealing with injustice and forgiveness. She watched a
father she knew personally forgive his adopted son for killing their wife
and mother.

The man worked with the legal system to avoid the death penalty for the
killer and to seek healing. "It was an amazing case where you can't bring
those back who are gone, but hopefully you can heal the people who are
here. It was that sense of 'Let's work through the issue and not just lock
him up and throw away the key,' which doesn't provide rehabilitation or
allow for change."

The concept of "restorative justice" goes to healing beyond retribution.
"You have to embrace that person and draw them back into the community ...
. We really do feel much like the Amish in restorative justice and
creating harmony within a community," she said, acknowledging that healing
"just takes a very long time. You have to know that you are going to
suffer through bouts of pain."

Quakers practice mentally "holding in the light" a person or problem,
praying for resolution and healing. She hopes tragedies like the Amish
have experienced  and their reaction  will help bring about questions and
discussion.

And there seem to be plenty of questions when it comes to forgiveness. A
discussion about the topic at the University of Utah a few weeks before
the school shooting drew dozens of people eager to understand how to
forgive and whether it's really possible.

Gordon believes the "proof is in the pudding" with the Amish  what the
outcome over time will be for that community in terms of mental health and
how they feel long-term rather than right now. "That's where you would
know if it's genuine rather than forced."

Luskin said humans don't have to want vengeance. "I wish we were all that
kind of Christian," but with the Amish, "it's the inner experience of some
in their community that I just don't know. For some or many people, they
can seamlessly do this. I'm not convinced that everyone can, even if they
don't want revenge."

(source: Deseret News)






INDIANA:

Indiana inmate admits to killing 5 women and 1 teenage girl


Prosecutors in northwest Indiana are closing the books on some old
murder-rape cases.

They say a mentally retarded man told a judge in Crown Point that he raped
and killed 5 women and a teenage girl more than a decade ago.

As part of an agreement, Eugene Britt, pleaded guilty but mentally ill to
only three murders. Britt will be sentenced to 245 years in prison. Last
week, the judge ruled Britt was mentally retarded and could not get the
death penalty.

He's already serving life in prison plus 100 years for the 1995 slaying of
an eight-year-old girl.

(source: Associated Press)






WISCONSIN:

Death penalty would present brutality over wisdom


Dear Editor: Channel 3 had a story saying a majority of Wisconsin
residents favored a death penalty. Are they aware of the details behind
the issue?

 A majority of the churches and humanist societies in Wisconsin have come
out against a death penalty in Wisconsin. 2/3 of the countries in the
world have abolished the death penalty. Shall Wisconsin join the world
majority or join ranks with China, Iran and Saudi Arabia (which together
with other states in the United States make up for 94 % of the world's
executions, according to Amnesty International)?

 A study by New Jersey on its death penalty has the startling figures of
$253 million spent on death penalty convictions since the last
reinstatement of the death penalty and of the 60 death penalty
convictions, 50 were reversed. Effective money spent?

That is what the Department of Corrections is asking for in the next
budget. Or $52 million less than what BadgerCare is seeking. Shall
Wisconsin become a state that considers killing criminals more important
than providing health care for its citizens?

 How often do you see a rich person on death row? How often blacks versus
whites?

The last death penalty conviction in Wisconsin was a public hanging in
Kenosha, where, according to historical notes, the death was so drawn out
that the public was outraged by its brutality. It may become lethal
injection now, but it's still brutal. Let's not answer brutality with
brutality, let's answer it with wisdom.

Susan Hagstrom -- Madison

(source: Letter to the Editor, The Capital Times)