because Barney heard everything, was to drag a case or a hearing past lunch and into the afternoon when he always took his nap. If you could make it to 3:00 p.m., your chances of beating Barney rose dramatically.
Two years earlier, he had been approached by the family of Tommy Ward, no relation, but had passed on the case. He was convinced Ward and Fontenot were innocent, but he preferred not to handle capital cases. The paperwork was overwhelming, and not one of his strengths.
Now he was approached again. Judge John David Miller asked Barney to represent Ron Williamson. Barney was the most experienced criminal defense attorney in the county, and his expertise was needed. After a brief hesitation, he said yes. A pure lawyer, he knew the Constitution inside and out, and he believed strongly that every defendant, regardless of how unpopular, was entitled to a vigorous defense.
On June 1, 1987, Barney Ward was appointed by the court to represent Ron, his first death penalty client. Annette and Renee were pleased. They knew him, and they knew of his reputation as one of the best criminal defense lawyers in town.
The lawyer and the client got off to a rocky start. Ron was tired of the jail and the jail was quite tired of him. Conferences took place in a small visitors' room near the front door, a place Barney found too cozy with his unruly client. He made a call and arranged a mental checkup for Ron. A new supply of Thorazine was prescribed, and much to the relief of Barney and the entire jail the drug worked beautifully. In fact, it worked so well the guards overused it to keep peace. Ron was sleeping like an infant again.
During one conference, though, he could barely speak. Barney met with the jailers, the dosage was readjusted, and Ron sprang back to life.
He was generally uncooperative with his lawyer. He offered little but a steady stream of rambling denials. He was being railroaded into a conviction, just like Ward and Fontenot. Barney was frustrated from the day he was appointed, but he plowed ahead.
Glen Gore was in jail on kidnapping and assault charges. His court-appointed counsel was Greg Saunders, a young lawyer who was building a civil practice in Ada. During a client conference at the jail, he and Gore almost came to blows. Saunders walked next door to the courthouse and asked Judge Miller to remove him from the case. Judge Miller refused, so Saunders said he would take the next capital murder appointment if he could get rid of Gore. A deal, said Judge Miller, you're now representing Dennis Fritz in the Carter murder.
Though Greg Saunders was apprehensive about his death penalty case, he was also excited about working closely with Barney Ward. As an undergraduate at East Central, he had dreamed of being a trial lawyer and had often cut classes when he knew Barney was in action. He had watched Barney rip shaky witnesses and intimidate prosecutors. Barney respected judges but did not fear them, and he could chat with a jury. He never used his disability as a crutch, but at crucial moments he could use it to arouse sympathy. To Greg Saunders, Barney was a brilliant courtroom lawyer.
Working independently, but also quietly working together, they filed a truckload of motions and soon had the district attorney's office scrambling. On June 11, Judge Miller called a hearing on issues raised by both the state and the defense. Barney was demanding a list of the names of all the witnesses the prosecution expected to use in the case. Oklahoma law required such disclosure, but Bill Peterson was having trouble with the statute. Barney explained it to him. The prosecutor wanted to disclose only those witnesses he planned to use at the preliminary hearing. Not so, said Judge Miller, and Peterson was ordered to timely notify the defense of any new witness.
Barney was in a feisty mood and prevailed on most of the motions. He was also showing signs of frustration. In one aside, he commented on being court appointed and not wanting to spend too much time on the case. He vowed to do a proper job, but was worried about getting consumed with his first capital murder trial.
The following day he filed a motion requesting additional counsel for Ron. The state did not object, and on June 16 Frank Baber was appointed by Judge Miller to help Barney. The legal wrangling and paperwork battles continued as both sides prepared for the preliminary hearing.
Dennis Fritz was placed in a cell not far from Ron Williamson. He couldn't see Ron, but he could certainly hear him. When he wasn't over-medicated, Ron yelled constantly. For hours, he would stand at the bars in his cell door and bellow over and over, 'I am innocent. I am innocent.' His deep and husky voice echoed through the cramped building. He was a wounded animal, in a cage, in dire need of help. The prisoners were stressed anyway, but Ron's screeching voice added another thick layer of anxiety. Other inmates would yell back at him and taunt him about killing Debbie Carter. The bickering and cursing back and forth were occasionally amusing but generally nerve-racking. The jailers moved Ron from his isolation cell into a bullpen with a dozen others, an arrangement that proved disastrous. The men had little privacy and practically lived shoulder to shoulder. Ron respected no one's space. A petition quickly appeared. It was signed by the other prisoners and begged the jailers to take Ron back to isolation. To prevent a riot or a killing, the guards agreed.
Then there were long periods of silence, and everyone, inmates and guards, would breathe easier. Soon the entire jail knew that either John Christian was on duty or the guards had given Ron another toxic dose of Thorazine.
The Thorazine quieted him, though at times there were other side effects. It often made his legs itch, and the 'Thorazine shuffle' became part of the jail's routine as Ron stood at the bars of his cell and ducked and weaved from side to side for hours.
Fritz would talk to him and try to calm him, but it was hopeless. Ron's cries of innocence were painful to hear, especially for Dennis, who knew him best. It was obvious that Ron needed much more than a bottle of pills.
Neuroleptic drugs are synonymous with tranquilizers and antipsy-chotics, and are used primarily on schizophrenics. Thorazine is a neuroleptic, and it has a tortured history. In the 1950s it began flooding state mental hospitals. It's a potent drug that strongly reduces awareness and interest. Psychiatrists who support the drug claim it actually cures the patient by altering or repairing bad brain chemistry.
But critics, who greatly outnumber supporters, cite numerous studies that show the drug to produce a long, frightening list of side effects. Sedation, drowsiness, lethargy, poor concentration, nightmares, emotional difficulties, depression, despair, lack of spontaneous interest in the surroundings, a blunting or dulling of the patient's awareness and motor control. Thorazine is toxic to most brain functions and disrupts nearly all of them.
Its harshest critics have called it 'nothing more than a chemical lobotomy.' They claim that the only real purpose of Thorazine is to save money for mental institutions and prisons and to make patients and inmates more manageable.
Ron's Thorazine was doled out by his jailers, sometimes with instructions from his lawyer. Often, though, there was no supervision. He got a pill when he got too loud. Even though Dennis Fritz had remained in Ada for four years after the murder, he was considered an escape risk. Like Ron's, his bail was exorbitant and out of the question. Like all defendants, they were presumed to be innocent, but nonetheless kept in jail so they wouldn't flee or be loose on the streets killing others.
Presumed innocent, but they would wait almost a year until they went to trial.
A few days after Dennis arrived at the jail, a man by the name of Mike Tenney suddenly appeared outside his cell. Fat and balding and not well spoken, Tenney nonetheless had a big smile and a friendly manner, and he treated Dennis like an old friend. And he desperately wanted to talk about the Carter murder.
Dennis had been around Ada long enough to know the jail was a cesspool of snitches, liars, and cutthroats, and he knew that any conversation with anyone could very well be repeated in a courtroom in a version slanted sharply against the person on trial. Every inmate, guard, cop, trustee, janitor, cook, everyone was a potential snitch, anxious to pick up details and then retail the information to cops.
Tenney said he was new to the place and claimed to be a jailer, but in fact he was not yet on the county's payroll. Though unsolicited, and certainly not based on knowledge or experience, Tenney had plenty of advice for Dennis. In his opinion, Dennis was in deep trouble, staring at an execution, and the best way to save his skin was to come clean, confess, cut a deal with Peterson over at the D.A.'s office, and give up the dirt on Ron Williamson.
Peterson would be fair. Dennis just listened.
Tenney wouldn't go away. He returned every day, shaking his head gravely at Dennis's predicament, babbling on about the system and how he thought it operated, giving sage advice that was absolutely free.
Dennis just listened.
A preliminary hearing was scheduled for July 20, before Judge John David Miller. Like in most jurisdictions, preliminaries were crucial in Oklahoma because the state was required to play its hand, to show the court and
