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The Innocent Man

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THE INNOCENT MAN: MURDER AND INJUSTICE IN A SMALL TOWN, by John Grisham. New York: Doubleday, 2006. 368pp. Hardcover. $28.95. ISBN: 9780385517232. Reviewed by Jack E. Call, Department of Criminal Justice, Radford University. Email: jcall [at] RADFORD.EDU. John Grisham’s legal novels are well-known to avid readers of that literary genre. THE INNOCENT MAN is Grisham’s first (and so far only) venture into non-fiction. It tells the story of Ron Williamson, an Oklahoma boy with great promise as a professional baseball player. However, the demons of drink, drugs, and mental illness prevented Williamson from fulfilling that potential. Eventually, Williamson’s demons also destroyed his marriage, prevented him from holding a …show more content…

This result required analysis from another technician, who ultimately concluded that some of the samples were consistent with Fritz’ hair. It took this expert over two years to do his analysis, and he did so with the knowledge that when he was analyzing Fritz’ hair, Fritz was a suspect in the case. (Other hair samples that he analyzed were not marked as having come from a suspect). [*604] The prosecution’s case may have been strengthened when it was able to prove during cross-examination of Dennis Fritz that he had lied to the school system when he indicated on his job application that he had no criminal convictions. In fact, he had once been convicted of growing marijuana. (When the police had discovered this fact during its investigation, they called the junior high school where Fritz was working and told them that he was under investigation for murder and had lied about his marijuana-growing conviction. The school system fired him immediately). The prosecution also established that Fritz had lied about the marijuana-growing conviction on an application for a gun permit. Although this testimony may have strengthened the prosecution’s case a little by showing that Fritz had lied on at least two occasions, the case in chief from the prosecution was so weak to start with that it is difficult to imagine how the case survived a motion for a directed verdict from the defense, much less provided a

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