Published: September 18, 2008 12:59 pm      

Former district attorney's suit against author dismissed

Oklahoma City — (AP)—A federal judge on Wednesday dismissed a libel lawsuit filed against best-selling author John Grisham over a nonfiction book he wrote about the 1982 murder of an Ada cocktail waitress.

The lawsuit was filed last year by former Pontotoc County District Attorney William Peterson, former Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation investigator Gary Rogers and Melvin Hett, an OSBI criminalist.

The suit named Grisham, his publishing company and the authors and publishing companies of two other books critical of Peterson and his prosecution of murder cases. Also named as a defendant was Barry Scheck, founder of the New York-based Innocence Project and an attorney for one of the men falsely accused in the murder of Debbie Sue Carter.

Dennis Fritz and Ron Williamson both were prosecuted by Peterson and convicted of killing Carter. They were later cleared by DNA evidence and freed after 12 years in prison. Williamson, who was sentenced to death, was just five days away from his execution when he was granted a stay.

A key witness for the prosecution, Glen Gore, was later linked to the crime by DNA, found guilty of the murder and sentenced to life in prison.

Grisham’s book, “The Innocent Man,” and Fritz’s “Journey Toward Justice” both documented the murder and subsequent trials.

The plaintiffs alleged in their lawsuit that the defendants conspired to commit libel, generate publicity for themselves by placing the plaintiffs in a false light and intentionally inflicted emotional distress.

But U.S. District Judge Ronald White rejected those claims in his ruling Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Oklahoma.

“Where the justice system so manifestly failed and innocent people were imprisoned for 11 years (one almost put to death), it is necessary to analyze and criticize our judicial system (and the actors involved) so that past mistakes do not become future ones,” White wrote in his ruling.







“The wrongful convictions of Ron Williamson and Dennis Fritz must be discussed openly and with great vigor.”

Gary Richardson, the attorney for Peterson, Rogers and Hett, said he was still reading the judge’s order to determine whether he would file an appeal.

“Of course, I’m quite disappointed and a bit surprised at the ruling,” Richardson said. “I felt that we had a solid case for defamation.”

Two attorneys for the defendants, Robert Nelon and Jon Epstein, declined comment Wednesday afternoon, saying they needed more time to review the court’s ruling.

But Scheck, who was named in the lawsuit and who worked to help free Fritz and Williamson, said he was pleased with the judge’s ruling.

“This is a victory for free speech and for holding officials publicly accountable for their role in wrongful convictions,” Scheck said in statement. “The court noted that we can learn from wrongful convictions to improve the system, and we can’t do that unless these cases are fully examined, even when the facts are embarrassing for public officials who were involved in these miscarriages of justice.”

A message left Wednesday with Grisham’s publishing company was not immediately returned, but on his Web site, Grisham wrote about traveling to Oklahoma to research the book and the troubling nature of wrongful convictions.

“This is not a problem peculiar to Oklahoma, far from it,” Grisham wrote. “Wrongful convictions occur every month in every state in this country, and the reasons are all varied and all the same — bad police work, junk science, faulty eyewitness identifications, bad defense lawyers, lazy prosecutors, arrogant prosecutors.

“Murders and rapes are still shocking events and people want justice, and quickly,” he continued. “They, citizens and jurors, trust their authorities to behave properly. When they don’t, the result is Ron Williamson and Dennis Fritz.”

Peterson spoke with an AEN reporter Thursday and had this reaction;

“Judge White ruled that lies or misleading opinions are fair game when written about a public official,” Peterson said. “He said that it was constitutionally and statutorily protected free speech. I knew going in that the burden placed upon public officials was very high and hard to overcome, but we thought that the facts were sufficient to overcome this high burden.”