The Innocent Man Case Study

Ron Williamson was born in Ada, Oklahoma. He was a talented baseball player who everyone believed was headed toward the major leagues after High School. However, after an elbow injury and several run-ins with the police his perceived future began to change. After spending all of his initial signing money on alcohol, drugs, and clubs; he was cut from every baseball team he managed to make. Once it seemed that his dream of playing baseball for a major league team had diminished he moved back to Oklahoma. He continued to spend his time drinking, getting high, and partying at clubs once he moved back home. He borrowed money from everyone he could and slept on his parents’ couch. He later became friends with a man named Dennis Fritz. Fritz was very similar to Ron and the two began to be seen around town together causing a variety of trouble, in many situations involving the police. On the very early morning of December …show more content…
It shows that the concept of every person being innocent until proven guilty is not always applied or followed in every case. Williamson and Fritz faced an unfair trial because of their personal history and what people in Ada already knew about them. People tend to trust those with higher authority, however The Innocent Man proves that people should always use discrimination before believing what they hear. Once people believed that Williamson and Fritz were guilty of murder the truth had very little meaning. Their conviction determined how people treated them and their standing in society. These two men spent 12 years in prison being punished for a crime that they didn’t commit. This book is important to our understanding of society. It shows that everything is not always what it seems and that mistakes can easily be made. The jury and town of Ada were easily corrupted by what they believed happen to Debbie