Murder Cases Are the Most

Murder cases are the most serious type of crime that our criminal justice system is asked to address and, as such, should be provided the highest level of scrutiny but, as the Oklahoma case involving the rape, beating and ultimate death of Debra Carter demonstrates this is not always the case. In a case that remained unsolved for a period of five years, the Ada, Oklahoma police department, the state prosecutor's office, and the court system demonstrated how two innocent men were wrongly tried and convicted. Fortunately for the two defendants in the case, Ron Williamson and Dennis Fritz, in what was one of the first DNA exoneration cases in America, both men were eventually exonerated. If not for the persistent efforts of the Oklahoma death penalty assistance program and a courageous federal judge, Ron Williamson would have been put to death and Dennis Fritz would have spent the rest of his life in prison.

The actions of the police, prosecutor and court in the handling of the Carter murder were suspect from beginning to end. In the initial stages of the investigation neither Williamson nor Fritz were implicated in any way. It was only after one of the men who was considered among the early suspects, George Gore, stepped forward and identified Williamson as a having been with the victim the night of the murder did the investigation focus on Williamson. Interestingly, the police had interviewed a number of individuals who had been present in the nightclub where the victim was last seen before the murder and no one mentioned having seen either Williamson or Fritz in the club that evening but this is only the beginning of the flaws in how the system worked for the two defendants.

For reasons that are never clearly identified the police determined that the case had to involve two perpetrators. This determination worked to the disadvantage of the Dennis Fritz, who was a frequent companion of the prime suspect, Ron Williamson. The evidence against Fritz was not strong but Fritz made the fatal mistake of agreeing to take a polygraph examination. The examiner found Fritz's answers to be evasive and, based largely on this assertion by the examiner, Fritz was arrested and ultimately convicted. His conviction, by the way, occurred prior to Williamson's being tried. The other evidence against Fritz was the testimony of three jailhouse snitches; evidence that Fritz was a member of the population of individuals who blood type could not be determined from body fluids; and hair samples found at the scene that were consistent with Fritz's hair. Finally, the prosecution was also to create doubt as to Fritz's basic character by offering evidence that he had lied on his job application and on a gun permit application about having prior convictions. Regardless of the weakness of the case against Fritz, the jury found him guilty and sentenced him to life imprisonment.

The case against Williamson was not much stronger. Much of the same evidence used against Fritz was also used against Williamson but the prosecution also had the benefit of Williamson having described having dream confessions about the victim's murder that he related to jail personnel and two police investigators. The prosecution used Williamson's dreams as being confessions. Additionally, Williamson's behavior throughout the trial was quite erratic. Williamson had suffered from mental illness for a number of years and this became quite clear during the trial. On several occasions during the testimony of witnesses, Williamson interrupted them and even threatened the witnesses. The jury in the Williamson case, like it did in the Fritz's case, returned a unanimous verdict for conviction after only deliberating for six hours. In Williamson's case, however, the jury recommended a sentence of death.

The prosecution in both of these cases proceeded to trial on evidence that was extremely weak and tainted. It used extensive evidence from jailhouse snitches whose creditability was very questionable and it failed to force the police investigators to aggressively pursue the one snitch, Glen Gore, as a possible suspect even though Gore had an extensive problematic relationship with the victim. The prosecution also failed to share crucial evidence with the defense. As to the hair samples, they failed to advise the defense that one of the state's forensic experts stated that he could not identify the hairs from the scene as having come from either of the defendants and they also failed to share a videotaped interrogation with the defense as to the defendant Williamson in which he strongly denied being involved in the murder. Complicating matters even more, the trial judge, after having been advised that the prosecution had not shared the videotape with the defense, did not rule on the defense's motion for a new trial and, when he finally did after the trial was over, he ruled that the failure was not a violation of the Brady rule. Finally, despite the numerous incidents throughout the trial that called Williamson's mental competency into question, the trial judge never ordered a psychiatric examination of the defendant. This is primarily the responsibility of defense counsel but the trial judge could, and probably should, have done so on his own initiative.

Through the entire police investigation and trial process the system failed Williamson and Fritz terribly. There were numerous problems throughout the process that called into question the competency of the investigation, the motivations and ethical practices of the prosecution, the competency of the representation provided both defendants, and the courtroom practices of the trial judge. Fortunately for both defendants, however, they assistance that they were provided during the appeals process proved competent enough to delay the execution of Williamson and to eventually result in both of the defendants' releases. The releases occurred as a result of the eventual intervention of Harvard law professor Barry Scheck's Innocence Project that proved that the DNA of the victim and the defendants excluded the defendants. After some additional hair sample tests, the prosecution dismissed the charges.

Interestingly, a year and a half after the Carter murder a similar case, the murder of one Denise Haraway, also occurred in Ada, Oklahoma. Again the police and prosecution relied heavily upon the testimony of a jailhouse informant that resulted in the conviction of the prime suspect and two others. Neither the police nor the prosecution learned anything substantive from the Carter case as similar tactics and weak evidence were used in the Haraway case as well.

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There are several significant problems in the way that the evidence was presented in the Carter case that draw into question the competency and ethics of the police, prosecution, and trial judge in how they conducted themselves. First, the fact that the police failed to pursue Glen Gore as a suspect is highly questionable. Gore not only had a long and problematic relationship with the victim prior to her death but had also been seen, unlike either Williamson or Fritz, with the victim on the night of the incident. All of this information should have called into question the veracity of Gore's eventually implicating Williamson but there is no indication that the police or prosecution ever questioned Gore's motivation or veracity.

The interrogation process involving both defendants was also highly questionable. First, as to Williamson, his mental competency was questionable from the beginning. He had a long history of mental health problems and the police and prosecution were well aware of this history. Therefore, any reliance upon the defendant's comments about having dreams regarding the victim's death should have been seriously questioned or disregarded. Instead, they became a major focus of the prosecution's case against the defendant. As to Fritz, there is a serious issue as to why he was even considered to be a suspect other than his relationship with Williamson. There was no independent evidence that indicated that more than one individual was involved in the Carter murder and rape, yet, the police were convinced that the case had to have had two perpetrators and so Fritz was implicated. Finally, the testing and use of a polygraph examination of Fritz was inexcusable. It was based on the results of this test that the police ultimately decided to arrest Fritz and then they set about building their case. In reality, the results of the polygraph were not definitive and merely indicated that Fritz was being possibly evasive. Under normal circumstances, such results would have not motivated an arrest.