Dennis Fritz

In 1982, Debbie Carter was raped and murdered in Ada, Oklahoma. Four or five years later, Dennis Fritz and his friend Ronnie Williamson were arrested. Dennis knew nothing at all about the murder, but he was tried and sentenced to life in prison, based on next-to-no evidence. In prison, Dennis spent as much time as he possibly could in the law library to figure out how to prove his innocence and get out of there. Finally, after 11 (12?) years, DNA set him (and Ron) free.

The is the same murder covered in John Grisham’s “The Innocent Man”, though Grisham focused on Ronnie, and of course was an outsider’s point of view, whereas Fritz’s book is a memoir, so we see what all happened through his own eyes – an innocent men arrested and on trial for a murder he knew nothing about. Interesting book (and frustrating – between the lack of evidence to begin with and all those letters Dennis wrote to higher and higher levels of court to try to get someone to listen to him!).

Dennis did learn a lot about how the law works while he was in prison, and there were times in the book where he used legal terms and phrases and I wasn’t quite sure what exactly he meant, though the gist was there. But a bit of an explanation would have been nice. Oh, and Dennis was a single dad with a 13-year old daughter at the time of his arrest, so really sad that his daughter had to go through that, as well.… (altro)