because of her complete lack of seniority, had been assigned the unofficial title of 'death penalty clerk.' Vicky had been a social worker before law school, and she had quickly and quietly assumed the role as the token bleeding heart in Judge Seay's moderate-to-conservative office.
Williamson was her first habeas case involving the death penalty, and as she read his petition, she was captivated by the opening paragraph:
This case is a bizarre one about a dream that turned into a nightmare for Ronald Keith Williamson. His arrest came nearly 5 years after the crime-after Mr. Williamson's alibi witness was dead-and was based almost entirely on the 'confession,' related as a dream, of a seriously mentally ill man, Ron Williamson.
Vicky read on, and was soon struck by the paucity of credible evidence offered at his trial and by the haphazard strategies of his defense. When she finished it, she had strong doubts about Ron's guilt.
And she immediately asked herself if she had the nerves for such a job. Would every habeas petition be so persuasive? Was she going to believe every death row inmate? She confided in Jim Payne, who devised a plan. They would draft Gail Seward, more of a centrist, and get her opinion. Vicky spent an entire Friday copying the lengthy trial transcript- three copies, one for each member of the conspiracy. Each spent the entire weekend reading every word of Ron's trial, and when they huddled early on Monday morning, the verdict was unanimous. From the right, left, and center, all agreed that justice had not been served. Not only were they certain the trial had been unconstitutional; they also believed Ron might very well be innocent.
They were intrigued by the reference to The Dreams ofAda. Janet Chesley's petition made much of the dream confession Ron had allegedly made. He had been reading the book shortly after his arrest, and had it in his cell when he gave his own jailhouse dream to John Christian. Published seven years earlier, the book was out of print, but Vicky found copies in used bookstores and libraries. The three read it quickly, and their suspicions of the authorities in Ada were greatly magnified.
Since Judge Seay was known to be rather abrupt when dealing with habeas matters, it was decided that Jim Payne would approach him and break the ice on the Williamson case. Judge Seay listened carefully, then got an earful from Vicky and Gail. The three felt strongly that a new trial was in order, and after hearing them out, the judge agreed to study the petition.
He knew Bill Peterson and Barney Ward and most of the gang down in Ada. He considered Barney an old pal but had never cared for Peterson. Frankly, he was not surprised at the sloppy trial and flimsy evidence. Strange things happened in Ada, and Judge Seay had heard for years that the cops had a bad reputation. He was particularly bothered by the lack of control Judge Ronald Jones had exerted over the proceedings. Bad police work and slanted prosecutions were not unusual, but the trial judge was supposed to guarantee fairness.
Nor was he surprised that the Court of Criminal Appeals had seen nothing wrong with the trial.
When he became convinced that justice had not been served, he and his staff launched into a thorough review of the case.
Dennis Fritz had lost contact with Ron. He had written one letter to his old friend, but it went unanswered.
Kim Marks and Leslie Delk drove to Conner to interview Dennis in connection with their investigation. They brought the Ricky Joe Simmons video and played the confession. Dennis, like Ron, was angry that someone else had confessed to the murder they were convicted of committing, yet this information had not been available at his trial. He developed a correspondence with Kim Marks, and she kept him posted on the developments in Ron's case.
As a fixture in the law library, Dennis heard all the legal gossip and knew the latest rulings from around the country. He and his fellow jail-house lawyers missed nothing in the field of criminal procedure. DNA testing was first mentioned in the early 1990s, and he read everything he could find on the subject.
In 1993, a segment of Donahue was devoted to four men who had been exonerated by DNA testing. The show found a wide audience, especially in the prisons, and served as a catalyst for the innocence movement across the country.
One group that had already gained attention was the Innocence Project, founded in 1992 by two New York lawyers, Peter Neufeld and Barry Scheck. They set up shop in the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law as a nonprofit legal clinic where students handled the case work while staff attorneys supervised. Neufeld had a long history of legal activism in Brooklyn. Scheck was an expert on forensic DNA and became famous as one of the attorneys for O.J. Simpson.
Dennis watched the Simpson trial closely, and when it was over, he considered the possibility of contacting Barry Scheck.
After receiving numerous complaints about H Unit, in 1994 Amnesty International conducted a thorough evaluation of the place. It found many violations of international standards, including treaties adopted by the United States and minimum rules set forth by the United Nations. The violations included cells that were too small, inadequately furnished, unlit, unventilated, windowless, and without access to natural light. Not surprisingly, the exercise yards were found to be unduly restrictive and much too small. Many inmates skipped their one hour a day so they could have the privacy of the cell without their roommate. Other than a high school diploma course, there were no educational programs, nor were the inmates allowed to work. Religious services were restricted. Isolation of individual prisoners was too severe. The food service needed a thorough review.
In conclusion, Amnesty International found that conditions on H Unit amounted to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment in violation of international standards. The conditions, when 'applied over a period of time, can have a detrimental effect on the physical and mental health of prisoners.'
The report was issued, but was not binding on the prison. It did add fuel to some of the prisoner lawsuits that had been filed.
After a three-year hiatus, the death chamber machinery cranked up again. On March 20, 1995, Thomas Grasso, male white, age thirty-two, was executed after only two years on The Row. Though it had been difficult, Grasso was able to stop his appeals and get things over with.
Next came Roger Dale Stafford, the infamous steak-house murderer, who had one of the more notable executions. Mass murders in big cities draw more press, and Stafford went out in a blaze of glory. He'd spent fifteen years on death row, and his case was used by police and prosecutors and especially politicians as a prime example of the flaws in the appeals process.
On August 11, 1995, a bizarre execution took place. Robert Brecheen, a forty-year-old white male, barely made it to the death chamber. The day before, he swallowed a handful of painkillers that he had somehow smuggled in and stockpiled. His suicide was to be his final effort at telling the state to go to hell, but the state prevailed. Brecheen was found unconscious by the guards and rushed to the hospital, where his stomach was pumped and he was stabilized enough to get hauled back to H Unit for a proper killing. Judge Seay directed his staff through a tedious evaluation of every aspect of the Williamson case. They pored over the transcripts, which included the preliminary hearing and every other court appearance. They cataloged Ron's lengthy medical records. They studied the police files and reports from the OSBI experts.
The workload was divided among Vicky Hildebrand, Jim Payne, and Gail Seward. It became a group project, with no shortage of ideas and eagerness. The trial was rotten, a clear miscarriage of justice had occurred, and they wanted to correct it.
Judge Seay had never trusted hair evidence. He had once presided over a federal death penalty case in which the star witness was to be the FBI's top hair expert. His qualifications were beyond reproach and he'd testified many times, but Judge Seay was not impressed. The expert didn't testify and was sent away.
Vicky Hildebrand volunteered for the research on hair evidence. For months she read dozens of cases and studies and became convinced that it was all junk science. It was so wildly unreliable that it should never be used in any trial, a conclusion Judge Seay had long since reached.
Gail Seward concentrated on Barney Ward and the mistakes he made at trial. Jim Payne tackled the Brady issues. For months the team worked on little else, putting Williamson aside only to tend to pressing matters. There was no deadline on their work, but Judge Seay was a taskmaster who didn't tolerate an idle docket. They worked nights and weekends. They read and edited each other's work. As they peeled away more layers, they found more mistakes, and as the trial errors piled up, their enthusiasm increased.
