The Innocent Man (2018) s01e03 Episode Script

Let me tell you a story.
Back in April 19th, 1909,
here in Ada, Oklahoma,
there was one of the most
famous hangings that ever took place.
Ada I had a pretty rough reputation
in those early days.
If you wanted to settle a dispute
or an argument,
you just pulled your gun out and said,
"Okay, we're gonna settle it here."
[gunshot]
A guy named Gus Bobbitt
was a rancher here
that had had several disputes
over grazing rights.
And there was a couple of guys
named Allen and last name West,
and they had really bad blood
with Bobbitt.
So they got a fella
by the name of Jim Miller.
He was a hired gun.
They hired Mueller to come up
and kill Bobbitt.
[gunshot]
The law people
in the Ada Pontotoc County area
managed to get Allen West
and Miller and had them in jail.
And that Sunday evening,
this group of men went to the jail,
took them down to the livery stable
and hanged the men.
No one knows, to this day,
who did the hanging.
How could 20 to 30 people,
with people watching,
do something like this?
This was really
a frightening thing for everyone.
It was written up in the papers
all over the United States.
The end of vigilante justice.
And what it really meant
was that the courts and law and order
we're going to start functioning
as they should.
And that when someone committed an act,
such as killing someone,
that they would be brought
into the judicial system,
and law and order
would take care of the punishment,
not a group of people
taking the law into their own hands.
[interviewer] How's that working out?
[tsks and breathes deeply]
Well [laughs]
[Barret]
Central to how I view the world
is hearing from the pulpit,
the emphasis on love
being the core principle.
There are many people who say
that the types of persons
I've sometimes represented,
and I've represented guilty people
who've committed murder many times,
shouldn't be represented.
Well, why wouldn't I?
They're a person, you know.
Like I said, it's just never computed
to me that I was doing,
I might be doing bad instead of good
in representing accused killers.
It was at one point debatable,
whether there even were innocent people
in prison, as crazy as that seems.
But at one time,
there was the idea,
which a segment of the public bought,
that law enforcement was magic.
That for whatever reason,
because God was on their side
innocent people didn't get convicted.
And the theory,
if you would think about it,
made no sense
because if God always intervened,
there wouldn't be crime at all.
First time I met Ron Williamson
was on death row in 1988.
I was
assistant appellate public defender
and was assigned
to his case by my supervisor.
My name is Kim Marks,
I'm an investigator
currently at the Oklahoma
Indigent Defense System,
which is a state agency in Oklahoma.
[piano music playing]
I first started working for the Indigent
Defense System in September of 1992.
And Ron Williamson's case was
one of the first cases
that was assigned to me.
[baseball commentator speaking]
It's a hit!
There it goes! It's out of here!
They are very concerned
that you are the one who did it.
I charge you, devil,
take your hands off God's property
and loose every man!
[Davis] When I first started working
on this case,
I was told that this was
one of our clients who might be innocent.
I read that trial transcript, and I'm like
"Where's the part where he's innocent?"
[laughs] I mean,
'cause the way the trial was presented,
I mean, there was so much
that was unsaid in the trial.
And so much
that was just kind of skewed.
Because there was nobody
fighting back as hard as they could have,
it was not apparent
that he was an innocent man.
When I started reading
all the police reports
and looking at all the materials
involved in the case,
I mean, it was just clear to me
that they had the wrong person.
[Barret]
For Ron, since he was on death row,
he had a lawyer for a direct appeal,
which was lost.
From there, he goes on to have lawyers
file a post-conviction application
on his behalf that was denied.
He came
within a few days of being executed then
before the case came to
the opinion of my supervisor.
And she got a stay issued.
I think it was less than a week
before that execution date.
And then he gets in the federal court.
[Davis] Now you're asking
the federal court to review it
to find out if there are any violations
of the United States Constitution.
Mistakes the judge might have made,
mistakes the prosecutor might have made,
all those things that make you believe
this was not a fair trial.
[Williamson laughs]
- This feels like a damn game, man.
- What's that?
- This is bullshit.
- What?
I don't know why they keep on me.
They know I didn't do this.
There seemed to be the idea, well,
maybe he did it because he lived close by,
and the idea that maybe he did it
because he was at the Coachlight.
And, of course,
both narratives have real problems.
First of all, it was only Glen Gore
who said that Rob Williamson was there.
The other thing is,
there's pretty good evidence
from a God-fearing woman
that he was home
for a long time that night.
One fact
that Ron would always tell people about
was that he said
his mother was his alibi witness,
and that everybody in town knew her,
and knew that her word was good,
and that she wouldn't lie,
even for her son.
And he thought
that they intentionally waited
until she was dead to charge him.
Because, according to him,
she could have vouched for the fact
that he was home all night,
the night the Debbie Carter was killed.
[Darren] She kept a daily journal,
so she went back and checked her journal
and saw December 7th, 1982,
that she and Uncle Ronnie
had went and rented like a Betamax
or a VCR and a bunch of old movies
that she liked.
And they sat and watched movies
that entire night.
[Barret] She brought the receipt
for renting them
at the movie place to Dennis Smith
and never saw that again.
[Darren] Fact-check me on this,
but I don't think they were able to find
a video camera that day,
but instead just kind of took
a brief note
that they accepted the journal,
probably put it into evidence.
And of course, that journal went missing.
That evidence not being used
and then disappearing
is, you know, significant.
[Dawn] This is the sheet rock.
You know, I told you that they
exhumed her body.
This was on the wall
and they could tell that it was a print,
but they didn't know who it went to.
So that's why they exhumed her body,
was to try to match,
and it did match her, it was her print.
[Darren]
So they had originally done a palm print,
you know, during the autopsy.
Right? So they had
a very accurate palm print.
And then Peterson gets the idea
that he wants to exhume the body
four years after Debbie's death
when they already had
a palm print on file
that did not match or did not prove
to be Dennis Fritz or Ron Williamson's.
The investigator
that did the original palm print
had found that it was not consistent
with Debbie Carter's.
Then they exhumed the body,
approximately five years later,
and the same agent
that said it was not her hand print
changed his mind
and said that it was her palm print.
And it's my understanding
that that's the only time
he ever changed his mind as to a print.
[Darren] The dude magically, miraculously,
24 years into the guy's career,
he makes his very first reversal.
And how he could take a palm print
from an exhumed body
and somehow find more accuracy in that
then the original palm print,
which was taken, I think on December 9th,
two days after the murder
Come on, it's ridiculous
[Kim] In Oklahoma at the time,
the science available was hair comparison,
there was fingerprints,
there were ballistics,
and tire impressions.
So a lot of techniques being used
were considered viable tools.
But now, with new inventions in science,
new technology, new research,
we're finding a lot of stuff that we used
just isn't good enough.
I worked on a DNA case, he was exonerated.
And that was a Pontotoc County case,
prosecuted by Bill Peterson's office.
The evidence wasn't even human hair.
They thought it was dog hair.
How are we comparing dog hair
to human hair
and coming up with convictions?
Did you find any pubic hairs
that match that of Dennis Fritz?
Yes sir, I did.
I found one pubic hair
from the wash cloth.
My opinion that it is consistent,
microscopically,
with Dennis Fritz' pubic hair.
Their evidence was probably
the most commonly used
type of forensic evidence
in the 1980s.
Hair evidence was not a science.
There were no studies that showed
that through blind testing
a person could accurately
determine which hair came
from which person, there was none of that.
The phrase that was considered
proper to use
was the hairs were
microscopically consistent
and therefore could have originated
from the same source
Did you find any hairs
were consistent, microscopically,
with that of Ron Williamson?
Yes I did.
There were two pubic hairs
also from the bedding,
hairs that were consistent,
microscopically,
of Ron Williamson's hair?
Hair evidence has been discredited
over and over.
People who were convicted
on hair evidence
are getting out right and left.
It seems like they're wrong
more than they're right on hair evidence.
I mean, I can't answer
any more truthful than I answered them.
It looks like to me
that if you can't find out
the guy who did this,
in this small a town
you know,
what in the hell?
Why don't you look into the people
that can hide that shit?
[Barret] Nineteen eighty-seven,
at that point
they had no statement from Ron.
In fact, he'd been asked about the case
numerous times
and he'd always denied it.
But suddenly, right after he was jailed,
they thought they had
an incriminating statement from him.
Which was that he had a dream about
going up to Debra Carter's apartment.
"I ended up at Debbie Carter's door,
knocked on the door, and she said,
'Just a minute, I'm on the phone.'
Burst in the door, raped and killed her."
It was a dream.
[Barret] The recount of it was not
an admission of having done anything.
It was his statement of having a dream.
He did not even describe correctly
the scene of the crime.
[Kim] Ron had a history of mental illness
and, of course, he heard voices.
And who's to sort out, was it a dream?
Was it something he heard?
Was it a voice he heard?
So, that was problematic.
[chuckling]
These are letters from prison.
I saved practically all of them.
I think I did. Tried to, anyway.
This was [sighs]
July 12th, 1989.
Ronnie wrote this.
"Renee, I'm going through
so much suffering.
The pressure here is immense,
never getting to go anywhere.
I've gotten down on the floor
and banged my head against concrete.
I've hit myself in the face
till I was so sore
the next day from the punches.
Everybody here is stuck here
like sardines.
This is the most suffering
I've ever had to endure.
Please help me, Ron."
It's hard, it's hard to get a letter
like that in the mail.
Heart-wrenching, you know?
Cried lots of tears.
There were two times
where his next of kin,
who he enlisted as his sister,
got notified
that his execution was impending.
Over time he
lost significant weight
and he quit bathing.
He had gray matter on him.
His hair grew out
and his teeth were rotting
out of his mouth.
It's still hard for me to even think about
how he was because
it was horrible.
It was horrible for him.
It was horrible for us to
to see it happening.
It was horrible for his family,
who couldn't do anything about it.
The prison just turned a blind eye.
I charge you, devil
I charge you, devil,
take your hands off God's property
and loose every man!
Two balls, one strike.
They don't know you didn't do it.
They are very concerned
that you are the one that did it.
[ROn laughs]
Don't you think they've got better things
to do than keep coming back on you?
No, like I said.
[Davis] A Brady violation
is when there is exculpatory evidence.
If it is in the hands of the state,
which includes the police
and the prosecutor
and it is can be viewed as exculpatory
to the person on trial,
you have to give it to whoever
is representing this person on trial.
[Barret] Ron Williamson,
he was brought in for a polygraph in 1983,
and continually
denied having any involvement in the case.
I'm not gonna take this test again.
I appreciate what you're doing.
I know what you're saying
about getting clean reads.
But hell, I thought I was,
done damn good on it.
[camera clicks]
So there was this tape,
and one of the issues that was raised
on Ron's first appeal
was they never turned over the tape
to the defense.
I mean, the prosecutor should've known,
I mean everyone
should have known that, you know,
we have to look at this evidence
to see if it's something
that should have been turned over.
Sometimes it's a guy who just
things came down too heavy
at one time, so he popped.
I understand it.
I'm sad that they was inconclusive
'cause I wanted desperately
clear myself in there.
I understand.
[Davis] This long videotape
that they didn't turn over
because they said it was a polygraph
that, you know,
that's inadmissible in court,
it is actually a two-hour interview.
It certainly should have been given
to defense counsel
to see what he really said
when he was being interviewed by OSBI
and, you know, Ada police.
I mean, you know,
very experienced interrogators.
Well, I'm just sad it didn't turn
I was really confident I could come here
and get this thing over with, so
[Davis] He denies involvement.
He just
keeps with his, "I'm innocent, you know,
I didn't, I didn't have anything
to do with this," and
for two hours they try to trip him up
on that and they can't do it.
Anything else I oughta know about?
Good luck to ya.
[Davis] It's a constitutional violation
not to turn over evidence
that would be exculpatory
to the defense.
There should have been a break
in the trial,
where everybody
could view the video tapes
and they could figure out
if they were relevant
and should be part of the trial,
but they didn't do that.
And we're still stunned that
fifty-five years after Brady
We still have prosecutors,
we catch them all the time,
violating Brady.
[Davis] So that was one tape
that was never turned over
to defense counsel.
The other tape is the [chuckles]
is the confession of Ricky Jo Simmons.
I will come and healing.
Oh, my friend. This is the Bible portrait
of Jesus Christ of Nazareth!
I will come and heal him!
You've come here for God to help you,
and he's going to do something for you.
- Okay, Ron. I'm ready when you are.
- Okay.
Why don't you start out
and introduce yourself.
Okay, Kim.
My name is Ronald Keith Williamson.
I'm currently incarcerated
at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary,
here in McAlester, Oklahoma,
where Dan Reynolds is our warden.
Okay.
I was sentenced to die
on September 27th of this year
for a crime I didn't commit,
a heinous, atrocious, and cruel murder
to one Debra Sue Carter.
I'm saying I believe one Ricky Jo Simmons
raped and murdered her
I was with one of the attorneys,
and we were coming out of a visit.
And the prison psychologist stopped us
and wanted to talk about Ron,
which was highly unusual.
Nobody ever wanted to talk
about our clients.
And he asked, he said
that he had been talking to Ron
and that he had kind of figured out
what was wrong.
And we said, "Okay."
And he continued on,
he said that Ron has an alter ego
and his name is Ricky Jo Simmons.
And Ron can't bring himself
to confess to the crime.
So his alter-ego named Ricky Jo Simmons
confesses for him.
And I was like, are you kidding me?
[chuckles]
And so I said, "Dr. Smith,
do you understand
that Ricky Jo Simmons is a real person.
That's not what's wrong with Ron,
Ron is innocent."
[Kim] Ricky Jo Simmons was a man
who lived in Ada.
He went to the police
and confessed to the crime,
and he did so on a video tape.
I intentionally went there
to kill somebody
and not to rape somebody.
I guess I was, you know,
trying to get in bed with her.
She started pushing and shoving.
Swinging, pushing me away, you know,
just freaked out
I believe I did something out of anger.
Ricky Jo Simmons came
into the police department
and said, "You have the wrong guy.
I believe I killed her, you know?
I am the real killer,"
And every time he said that
they would say,
"Oh, you know, Ricky,
we think you just are making this up.
Can we set up an appointment
with a counselor
for you to help you through this?"
And he came back every time, he said,
"No, I think I killed her."
Because she knew who I was
I believe I killed her.
Strangled her.
Finally, somebody, the real murderer
had come forward, Ricky Jo Simmons.
They showed the tape to Ron in prison
and he lost his mind.
On the witness stand, Mr. Carter said
that he picked his daughter up
and he could tell that she was dead!
All I'm saying,
I want Ricky Jo Simmons arrested
for the rape and murder
of Debbie Carter!
Okay. Now, is that all you want to say?
- That's all I wanna say.
- Okay.
I checked once
just to see if Ricky Jo Simmons
was still living in Ada,
but I don't think he ever
was brought up again on the case.
And truthfully, I don't think anybody,
except Ron Williamson,
believed that he was guilty.
I think, Ricky Jo Simmons probably had
his own mental health problems.
Well, he did it! He said he did it!
Remember who you're talking to.
- Okay.
- I'm on your side, okay.
- So that's all you wanna do on the video?
- That's all.
You wanna do it one more time,
to make sure we've got it?
It's up to you, we don't have to.
- I don't wanna do it.
- Okay.
Well, I'll turn it off then.
That was pretty easy.
Ron Williamson was clearly
very mentally ill.
And it was known to the whole town.
His sisters had worked for years
trying to get help for him.
He was bipolar.
He had some paranoid tendencies.
And this was known to everyone.
And that it never made its way
into his trialwas just shocking to me.
That boy won't cooperate with me at all.
If he was paying me I wouldn't be here.
I can't represent him, Judge,
I just can't do it.
I don't know who's going to, but I can't.
For a case like Ron's that required
a lot of investigative resources,
Barney wasn't ready for that.
He had a disability in that he was blind.
He hired an assistant
to help read for him and help prepare.
He was court-appointed.
He didn't work hard enough on the case.
He also got paid almost nothing.
I'm not gonna put up with this.
I'm too damned old for it, Judge.
I don't want anything to do with it,
not under any circumstances.
I have no idea about his guilt
or that has nothing to do with it,
but I'm not gonna put up with this.
At this time, I'm gonna ask
that you clear the courtroom.
[Barret] I'm by no means
saying that Barney Ward
did a good job, he didn't.
He did a bad job.
The courts found that he was found
to be ineffective,
and that's because he was ineffective.
Ineffective means that you didn't
effectively represent your client
because maybe you made a mistake.
You know, any lawyer
would have raised the competence issue.
Any lawyer would've done that,
I mean it was so glaring.
[Davis] My mental health argument was
all the things they knew before trial.
I mean, he got Social Security Disability,
based on his mental health
before his trial.
He had been found incompetent
to stand trial
in a check cashing case.
You know?
But somehow when he was
on trial for his life for murder,
nobody thought to raise these things.
But that was my argument
to the 10th Circuit,
is that everybody should have known
that these were important things
for a jury to know about.
I was sentenced to die on September 27th
of this year for a crime I didn't commit,
a heinous, atrocious
and cruel murder to one
Judge, say, he granted relief
at the state appeal
that they agreed that there was
ineffective assistance of counsel.
[Davis] We won the new trial
based on ineffective assistance
of counsel.
And now they're back at the trial level.
Once you've gotten that new trial,
then you can retest all the evidence.
[Kim] I talked to Dennis Fritz,
the co-defendant.
He was very helpful.
He wanted to help Ron.
He believed Ron was innocent and
he told me he was innocent.
And by the end of the interview, I was
convinced both of them were innocent.
A large part of the evidence
in Dennis' trial
was his connection to Ron Williamson.
On May 8th, 1987,
Dennis Fritz experienced
a strange sense of foreboding.
Just two hours later he was arrested
for rape and murder.
After a swift trial he was convicted.
And the vote of a single juror
saved him from the death penalty.
[Grisham] I think his appeals had run,
and since he was not facing death
there was nothing else really to appeal.
If you're not convicted
of a capital offense
you have only one appeal,
which you get a lawyer
appointed by the state,
and Dennis didn't have enough money
to hire his own.
[Davis]
Dennis Fritz filed his own federal appeal
because he did not have a lawyer
appointed for him to do that.
Dennis is a smart guy.
Ron was mentally unbalanced in prison.
And he's on death row.
Dennis was in a different prison.
And he saw a early episode
of one of the daytime talk shows
in the early '90sabout DNA.
An Oklahoma law school wants to make sure
innocent people who are put behind bars
still have a chance at freedom.
That's why the school is teaming up
with a non-profit group,
the Innocence Project,
which has helped overturn nearly 300
convictions in the last two decades.
[Scheck] We knew very early
that DNA testing would be transformative
for the criminal justice system.
Not only would it help law enforcement
find the people
who really committed the crimes,
but it would also exonerate
many individuals.
DNA testing is fairly new in Oklahoma.
It was first introduced in 1994.
Now it's playing a major role
in courtrooms.
Experts say it's almost foolproof.
It's certainly better
than hair comparison,
certainly better than ABO blood typing.
[Grisham] Dennis became obsessed with it,
did his research, all he could do,
and contacted the Innocence Project.
They screened him,
which is something that we struggle to do
every day at the Innocence Project.
There's so much mail,
that we struggle to open it all.
Dennis got screened pretty fast
because his letter was smart.
He had his file, you know,
perfectly organized.
He knew it inside and out.
It takes a long time
for for us to take a case,
you know, because we have to be careful.
And the cases we do take,
out of the thousands
of letters that come in,
half the time the guy is lying.
Barry Scheck was involved
in representing both Ron and Dennis.
Ron, especially,
because Ron was a death penalty case.
Dennis was not.
And Mark Barrett was Ron's lawyer.
He had been working for years
on Ron's case.
And he and Barry teamed up.
[Scheck]Sometime after Mark Barrett
was appointed to represent Ron
in the retrial
we wound up representing Dennis Fritz,
and were willing to pay
for all the DNA testing
that had to be done
for both Ron and Dennis.
We regarded, essentially,
that we were a team
and we were gonna work together
to do everything we could
to vacate these convictions
and find the person who actually did it.
[Barret] You can't always identify
which people are innocent,
and we were talking
about doing DNA evidence.
Ron had zero hesitation.
And I tried to tell myself,
you know, I gotta temper
my expectations a little bit
because even though
he has zero hesitation,
he's also crazy.
New information tonight
in a rape and murder case
that a victim's family thought was over.
Over the past five years, DNA has become
a popular tool for attorneys.
I wanted it,
Mark Barrett and Bill Peterson wanted it.
[Barret] While he filed the first motion
for it,
believing that it would help him
prove his case.
I think he thought that Ron was guilty
and that DNA would help him
prove that.
I contacted the lab and they said,
"Do we still have that evidence?"
"Yes, we do."
And I said, "I want an analysis done."
[Long] Back in 1982 when this happened,
DNA forensic application,
that wasn't even on the horizon.
It wasn't until quite a while later
that they were able
to do any DNA work in this case.
What we decided to do
was to check the DNA on the panty section
and the sheets.
We would do that first
and if it came back,
whatever comes back, then to make sure
then, we would do the hairs.
It was something new
that helped us know the truth
that we couldn't know before.
New DNA testing could mean that the two
men convicted in the 1982 rape and murder
of Debbie Carter of ADA could go free.
It's our big story tonight at six.
Eyewitness News 5 reporter Steve Voelker
joins us live from Ada tonight,
and Steve some shocking news in this case
that many thought was solved.
It was in this Pontotoc County courthouse
where Ron Williamson and Dennis Fritz
were sentenced 12 years ago,
and it will be in this courthouse where
we will learn if they will be set free.
[Judge] And then I got a letter,
three or four weeks later,
and it said this is not Dennis Fritz
and Ron Williamson.
I set that hearing
just as quick as I can set it.
I don't even remember who called me,
but they told me
that nothing matched Ron and Dennis
and they was gonna have to release them.
[Judge] I did not know what to expect,
except when I went by the courthouse
the trucks had started gathering.
I remember being very confused
by the whole situation
because there were 20/20, Dateline,
every state news station,
all these new trucks and satellites,
and we really didn't have a clue
as to what we walked in, on that day.
All we knew
is that they were being released
and these tests,
this DNA stuff didn't match.
Ron Williamson and Dennis Fritz
walked into the courtroom in handcuffs.
They got convicted
in that little courtroom.
By golly, I thought
they would walk out the door right there.
[Darren] I drove to Ada,
so I sat in the courtroom.
He was in civilian clothes. First time
I'd seen him that way in a long time.
One of the things I remember is they
brought my dad and Ron in, in handcuffs.
And so that was kind of hard to see.
That was the first time I'd seen him
in 12 years.
It was his decision
for me not to visit him in prison.
He didn't want me to be around
the people that were there with him,
and he just, you know,
he just didn't want me
to be exposed to that.
I was excited but, you know,
still just on pins and needles, not really
knowing exactly what was gonna happen,
if he was going to be freed
or what that really meant for him.
[Judge] What happened is Bill
put on a witness from the OSBI
that put on testimony
that it wasn't them.
There were no DNA profiles found
on any of the evidence
that we submitted to any of the labs
that were consistent
with either Mr. Fritz or Mr. Williamson.
Oh God, I was a nervous wreck.
On the other hand,
is like the truth is the truth.
Let's get it out.
The truth is that the evidence,
some of the evidence that was used
to convict Dennis Fritz
and Ronald Keith Williamson
has been proven by DNA
that they are not the source
of the donation of this forensic evidence.
And I believe it's incumbent,
based on the evidence,
that this case should be dismissed
against them.
Well, I just sat there
and I looked at Judge Landrith.
And he looked at me several times.
The boys got to stand up.
What you've seen today and what's occurred
over the last several months,
was what I truly believe is a
a non-adversarial
search for what the truth really is
in this case.
We used today's science
and today's technology
to right a wrong.
have been incarcerated,
nor can we ever forget Debbie Carter?
All we can do is go forward from today.
But what this day really is,
it's a day of freedom.
The motions to dismiss will be granted
for both of you.
And Mr. Fritz, sir, you'll be discharged
from the custody
of the Department of Corrections
and the Pontotoc County Sheriff's Office.
And Mr. Williamson, sir,
you'll be discharged also
from the Department of Corrections
and the Pontotoc County Sheriff's Office.
- Thank you, Judge.
- And
Mr. Williamson and Mr. Fritz,
you're free to go.
- Ron?
- Yeah.
- We'll catch you later.
- Okay.
[murmur]
During his years as an inmate,
Dennis Fritz had not allowed
his daughter to come and see him.
The last time they were together
she was 12 years old.
Dennis, you know, sees Elizabeth and
[whimpers and sniffles]
That was something.
Elizabeth, yes,
exact spitting image of her mother,
except her mother had blonde hair.
And I just almost fainted,
you know, when I seen her.
It was just, you know, I mean
It took me several minutes
to actually catch my breath.
[Elizabeth] They tear you down.
For my family, I mean,
they took my family away. [chuckles]
I only had my dad and [sobs]
that family unit is
was just ripped away for no reason.
How do you feel
about what happened here today?
There was a little bit of animosity in my
heart toward everybody on this Earth
for sending me to death row,
but eventually I did find a reason
in my heart
to forgive and forget it.
It's hard to get anybody to listen to you.
I mean, it is terribly difficult
to be on death row, an innocent man
and charged
with a potentially heinous crime.
[cameras clicking]
How close did you come to being executed?
Five days.
We knew that he was innocent.
But it's hard,
like he said, to convince people
for people to listen to you.
But we're just looking forward
to our family coming together again.
[Renee]That was joyful tears.
I cried then but they were joyful tears.
We went outside.
You know, everybody followed him out.
And the first thing he did
was light a cigarette up.
And we all were just gathered around him,
hugging him and congratulating him.
And he was smiling from ear-to-ear.
And getting to touch him
for the first time in
almost 12 years.
I feel pretty good, I tell ya.
[Darren]
It was an awesome day, in general.
It was probably the best day
that we had out of the entire story.
But the trauma inflicted
on the Carter family,
I mean, is just absolutely heartbreaking.
What Peggy has had to go through.
There she is at square one, to have to go
back through all this, after 16 years.
But for the family of the murder victim,
Debbie Carter,
the men's releases
is no cause for celebration.
[Peggy] And they got released and I know
they had these big smiles on their face.
And I thought,
"Boy, I'm proud somebody's happy today.
Cause I'm not one of 'em."
And I was just,
I was afraid, I was scared.
And all I could do was think, you know,
"Somebody's got to take blame for this."
And I got to crying so hard
they had to take me downstairs.
And this day is obviously
a great day of joy
for some,
and it's a
great day of sorrow revisited,
rekindled for others.
I thought well, I'll never know now
who done it to her.
I'll never ever find out.
I'll never know.
[Christy]
I was standing in the DA's office and
the whole family was there and I was
we were all asking questions
and he assured us
that if they found out
that they had anything to do with it
that they would try them again.
And I can remember asking
"Like that doesn't make any sense.
You can't do that, you know"
He didn't really have any answers.
He kind of stumbled around
and didn't have any answers.
[Darren
]Even on the day, and the day after,
Bill Peterson was putting out statements,
you know,
here in the local media, you know,
saying, you know, "I'll do what I can,
that Ron and Dennis are still, you know,
that we're still looking into them."
That gave them a lot of panic
even after they were exonerated and free.
Daddy thought that this guy
was gonna go after 'em again.
They believed
that they had something to do with it,
that they had to be there, and people
still hold on to that to this day.
They'll tell you,
"I know that they were there.
They had to be there."
[Renee] I don't think
you will ever change their minds.
and that's okay for them
if they want to believe that way.
But I want the world to know
that he was innocent.
They can't get it right,
just like getting Williamson.
They wanted to blame him
because he was a neighbor
and he had mental problems.
So he's the one that done it.
His only friend was Dennis Fritz.
So he helped him.
You can't do that.
That's not fair to them guys.
You just don't do that.
[Long] We did the best we could
with the technology
that we had at the time.
And do I regret that those things
happened to those guys?
Oh, absolutely.
Absolutely.
I just think that, that's terrible.
Do I think anybody
did anything on purpose
to see to it that that happened to them?
Absolutely not.
[Scheck]
I don't think it's accurate to say
they did the best they could
with the evidence that they had.
No, it was not a well done investigation,
and the failure to disclose
a lot of this exculpatory evidence
the judge recognized.
And that's not the way prosecutors
should behave, you're supposed
to disclose exculpatory evidence.
That's the fundamental.
Well, this is one of those
remarkable kind of iconic cases
that demonstrates
not just one thing,
but a multitude of things that are wrong
with the criminal justice system.
There's no need necessarily
to get too conspiratorial about it.
But something's really rotten
at the core of this case.
This is going to happen again,
don't think otherwise.
One of the biggest lessons
to learn from Ron's case
is that if there had been no DNA
if Debbie Carter have been merely
murdered and not raped and murdered,
Ron Williamson
would have been executed
and Dennis Fritz would have spent
the rest of his life in jail.
You can have that same evidence,
minus the semen,
and get people convicted today.
And examples are Tommy Ward
and Karl Fontenot.
There's no DNA
that we know of so far, anyway,
to be tested in their case,
their case stinks like crazy.
And I've seen the other people too
that's being released
for wrongful convictions and stuff.
And I cry.
A blessing. [whimpers and sniffles]
It's an overwhelming blessing.
I pray and ask God,
I wish it was me, you know.
[Barret]
Barry Scheck, and I were working on
Ron and Dennis' civil suit.
We were saying among ourselves
Hey, Tommy and Karl
have got to be innocent.
And somebody ought to do something
about that sometime.
Good to see you, Tommy.
It's sure good to see you too.
[Barret]
I have no doubt about Tommy's sentence.
There's just no way he did it.
Both cases involve alleged dreams
by suspects.
Ron claim he dreamed about going up
to Debbie Carter's apartment.
And Tommy
dreamed about
what happened to Denice Haraway.
Both of the dreams
described inaccurate facts.
The dreams were put into evidence
in both cases.
They were both cases that
were not immediately solved.
Lead investigators were the same.
The primary prosecutor
was Bill Peterson in both cases.
It raises questions.
[Tommy] Each day I just take it one day
at a time, you know,
and you can either come in here
and be just as salty and bitter about it,
or you can do everything you can
to try your best to get out.
That's fantastic,
it's good of you to call me.
I really appreciate it.
Yeah, good.
- [people chattering]
- [clanking]
I pray all the time,
that something would fall through,
you know, that would prove it.
I don't know what, you know, but
I hope something will fall through.
[Tommy] I was dreaming that I looked
and my cell door was open
and I hear this voice say,
"I can take you and show you
where Denice is at."
I say, "Where?" He said, "Follow me."
And I started to walk out the door,
and all of a sudden,
I feel this weird feeling.
I said
Who are you?
And
he said, "Does it matter?"
I said, "Yeah."
And then for some reason, I said,
"Are you a God or are you the devil?"
And as soon as I said that, I woke up.
Subtitle translation by