CLPEX Chat Board

John Grisham – Fresh Face with Same False Message
December 28, 2011 by Crime Lab Report

People have come to expect great stories from attorney and best-selling author John Grisham. His twenty-one fictional legal thrillers have sold nearly 300 million copies. Nine of them have been adapted for the silver screen.
But when Grisham testified before a United States Senate Committee hearing on the subject of forensic science, one would expect him to separate fact from fiction. He didn’t.

Grisham was on Capitol Hill December 7th representing the Innocence Project, for whom he serves as a member of the Board of Directors.
Grisham spent considerable time talking about the case of Ron Williamson and Dennis Fritz, two men who were wrongfully convicted for the 1982 rape and murder of Debra Sue Carter in Ada, Oklahoma. We expect Grisham to know the facts since he wrote a non-fiction book about the case in 2006.

This was no rush-to-judgment case. Nearly five years passed before Williamson and Fritz were arrested. The serological evidence indicated that the donor of suspect semen was a non-secretor; both Williamson and Fritz were also non-secretors. Forensic DNA testing did not exist at the time.

Grisham alleged that “the most damaging testimony” against Williamson came from a hair analyst with the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation (OSBI), who stated that “two scalp hairs and two pubic hairs were microscopically consistent with Ron’s samples and, he incorrectly testified, therefore there was a positive match.”

The analyst in question was Melvin Hett, who is now retired from the OSBI. Crime Lab Report obtained copies of the transcripts from both the Williamson and Fritz trials. Both men were tried separately yet evidence was introduced in both trials implicating each defendant.

The testimony that Grisham claims to be so “damaging” may surprise you.

>>View the entire article at:

http://crimelabreport.com/library/month ... 1-1228.htm

John Grisham writes fiction. His one claim to fame in the non-fiction category is "The Innocent Man," a book he wrote about the Ron Williamson and Dennis Fritz case. "The Innocent Man" allegedly tells the "true" story of the murder of Debra Sue "Debbie" Carter, the subsequent investigation, the evidence, the trials of Williamson and Fritz, and the eventual overturning of their convictions.

One supposedly vital piece of evidence from the scene of the murder was a bloody palm print recovered from the wall next to Debbie Carter's body. Originally, it could not be eliminated to Miss Carter because inadequate exemplars were taken at the time of her autopsy. She was exhumed some months later and reprinted. Jerry Peters of OSBI identified the bloody palm print as hers.

The defense contested that identification/elimination of the palm print to the victim and maintained that it belonged to "the real killer."

Grisham's book, "The Innocent Man," details how an independent expert was retained by The Innocence Project to review the bloody palm print and how that independent expert concluded that the palm print could NOT be identified to Debbie Carter. The book leaves the impression that Jerry Peters had made an erroneous identification.

Grisham's book, "The Innocent Man," neglects to mention that another independent expert retained by The Innocence Project did, in fact, verify the identification of the bloody palm print as having been made by Debbie Carter. Jerry Peters made and testified to a correct identification. The ommission of this fact may be interpreted by some as showing bias not generally accepted in the presentation of a case as "non-fiction."

I share that opinion. John Grisham should stick to writing fiction, a job he does very well. If he testifies, he should testify to his knowledge of writing fiction, not to forensic science, a field in which he is decidedly not an expert.

I think the idea of the Innocence project is a great idea - the trouble is that it has become such a perverted political grandstand it has very little to do with Innocence any more. Instead of using Forensics to identify cases where inconsistencies may be present; lawyers instead use, ironically, the very same reporting limitations Forensic science imposes on itself to imply guilt or innocence. So instead of reporting 'could not be eliminated' is twisted to imply the real killer is out there somewhere....and then they suppress the ident. Lovely.....

Couldn't Jerry from OSBI sue Grisham?

Pat- for arguement's sake couldn't you sue over the McKie case since they implied you made an erroneous exclusion? I've personally never heard of that in our field but this thread made me kind of curious....