John Grisham and Ron Williamson versus The Daily Oklahoman

Is the Daily Oklahoman is worst metropolitan daily newspaper in the United States? That always has been my impression (and, after more than ten years in the communications advocacy business, I think maybe I have dealt with every metropolitan daily in the country).

Anyway, I mention this because the newspaper recently published a rather shocking editorial assailing author John Grisham and defending Ponotoc County (Oklahoma) District Attorney William Peterson, despite Peterson's wrongful prosecution of Ron Williamson for capital murder.

First, the editorial:

Closing the book
One side fits all for Grisham

BIG names make for big book sales, which is why a famous author's name is in larger type than the title on a book's cover.

No bigger name in American fiction exists than that of John Grisham. The novelist was the top-selling author of the 1990s, ahead of even Stephen King, with more than 60 million copies sold. So when Grisham's anti-capital punishment zeal needed a new outlet, his name was all that was needed when he turned from fiction and became a journalist.

Except that Grisham doesn't know the first thing about journalism, especially the part about getting the other side of a story.

Grisham's foray into nonfiction centers on Ada. His 2006 book "The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town” is less a piece of reporting than an anti-death penalty polemic. If a movie is made of the book, it will likely be even more so.

That was true of "Dead Man Walking,” which was designed to make us hate the death penalty but in fact showed how a killer's denial of guilt was renounced only because he was made to pay for his crime.

The "hero” of Grisham's story was innocent, although he was convicted of the 1982 rape and murder of Deborah Sue Carter. The book is mainly Ron Williamson's story, but he's not the only character. Another is Pontotoc County District Attorney Bill Peterson, who prosecuted Williamson and remains in office.

The side of the story that Grisham refused to tell was Peterson's. In an October 2006 op-ed in The Wall Street Journal, Joshua Marquis, vice president of the National District Attorneys Association, slammed Grisham's one-sided "reporting.” Peterson himself has started a Web site to tell the story Grisham ignored.

Peterson not only prosecuted Williamson but was among the voices calling for the DNA testing that would exonerate him (it wasn't available at the time of the trial). Marquis noted that the one-sidedness of Grisham's book "feeds the popular perception — nurtured by Hollywood and the news media — that death rows are teeming with wrongfully convicted men who just await DNA testing to set them free.”

Grisham also played loose with the facts. In mail exchanges, Peterson confronted the author over mistakes the prosecutor found in the first few pages of the book. Grisham's flippant reply was that mistakes are "in the nature of nonfiction.”

Yet the book is essentially about mistakes — the mistaken conviction, for starters. Given Grisham's attitude, how long would he last as a reporter at any of the major newspapers whose reviewers gushed over this book?

Here's a fact: No evidence exists that an execution in modern times has taken the life of an innocent man. [blogger's note: Obviously the editorial writer has never heard of Ruben Cantu, Carlos De Luna, Larry Griffith and Cameron Todd Willingham.] Williamson and a co-defendant were set free not despite the system, but because of it. Grisham should stick to fiction, no matter how stale and formulaic his work has become [blogger's note: Oh, really? So the 123 (at least) death row exonerees should be thankful of the wonderful experience they had in awaiting execution for a crime they did not commit? What unadulterated balderdash. Idiots. Dolts. Fools.}

Anyway, a number of people in Oklahoma have read Grisham's book -- and a number of these people are upset, not with Grisham, but rather with the Ponotoc County district attorney for his wrongful prosecution. Here are a couple of their letters in response to the Daily Oklahoman's slanted editorial:

Grisham's book notes DA's failures
Regarding "Closing the book: One side fits all for Grisham” (Our Views, Feb. 18): John Grisham's "The Innocent Man” represents much more than an "anti-capital punishment zeal.” It's the true and documented history of how one man, Ponotoc County District Attorney William Peterson, used his office to take away the freedom of four Oklahomans.

Peterson manipulated the legal system, as Grisham reports, in such a way as to place these four men behind bars — two of them on death row. We have no way of knowing how many more have suffered from Peterson's actions.

Peterson's job is one that requires a serious study of each case brought to him, so justice is properly administered. Grisham's book points out all of Peterson's failures. It also details how a federal judge agreed when he criticized Peterson while overturning the Williamson conviction. Grisham's book should be required reading for all in Peterson's district. No doubt it could be the basis for removing him at the next election.

Bob Huckaby, Oklahoma City


In spite of the system
Regarding "Closing the book: One side fits all for Grisham” (Our Views, Feb. 18): I applaud your efforts to support and defend our system of justice in this state. Your take on the situation leaves me shaking my head, however. I read the book and I'm still a proponent of the death penalty as a just punishment. However, I don't support prosecuting and convicting innocent men and women with shaky, indirect, circumstantial evidence.

My degree is not in journalism, so I can't speak to the merits or motives of John Grisham. I disagree, though, with trying to justify someone spending years on death row and being a mere five days away from lethal injection by saying "he was set free ... because of the system.” No. He was set free in spite of the system. Grisham's book documents (and, I agree, rather loosely), not one but three men and possibly five men who were wrongly convicted and released after years in Oklahoma's most harsh prison setting.

I don't believe "The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town” should be considered as being etched in stone, but my state prosecuted, convicted and then almost killed several innocent men. Zeal is a good thing in law enforcement; railroading is not.

Wade Crews, El Reno