Grisham's New Book on the Death Penalty

I am very excited about John Grisham's new book, An Innocent Man, set to be released on October 10th. It is his first work of nonfiction and it details the life of an innocent man who ended up on death row for a crime he didn't commit.

I wasn't sure what to expect when I first heard that Grisham would be writing a book about wrongful conviction and the death penalty. To my knowledge Grisham, a moderate Baptist who was born and raised in the south, had never taken a public position on the issue. I do believe, however, that anyone who does an in-depth examination of the death penalty will find it hard to support the practice after really looking at the facts. Based on the information being released by the publishers, I suspect Grisham may have come to the same conclusion.

This is the statement the publishers have released about the book:

In the major league draft of 1971, the first player chosen from the State of Oklahoma was Ron Williamson. When he signed with the Oakland A's, he said goodbye to his hometown of Ada and left to pursue his dreams of big league glory.

Six years later he was back, his dreams broken by a bad arm and bad habits - drinking, drugs, and women. He began to show signs of mental illness. Unable to keep a job, he moved in with his mother and slept twenty hours a day on her sofa.

In 1982, a 21-year-old cocktail waitress in Ada named Debra Sue Carter was raped and murdered, and for five years the police could not solve the crime. For reasons that were never clear, they suspected Ron Williamson and his friend Dennis Fritz. The two were finally arrested in 1987 and charged with capital murder.

With no physical evidence, the prosecution's case was built on junk science and the testimony of jailhouse snitches and convicts. Dennis Fritz was found guilty and given a life sentence. Ron Williamson was sent to death row.

If you believe that in America you are innocent until proven guilty, this book will shock you. If you believe in the death penalty, this book will disturb you. If you believe the criminal justice system is fair, this book will infuriate you.

posted by Sachin @ 12:23 PM