The Innocent Man (33 page)

Bill Luker called Ron with the bad news, and he took it well enough. Ron had studied the briefs, talked to Bill many times, and been cautioned against optimism.

On the same date, Dennis Fritz received the same news from the same court. Again, the justices found several mistakes in his trial but were evidently swayed by the “overwhelming evidence” against Dennis.

He had not been impressed with the brief filed by his appellate lawyer, and he was not surprised when his conviction was upheld. After three years in the prison library Dennis believed that he knew the statutes and cases better than his attorney.

He was disappointed but did not give up. Like Ron, he had other arguments to make in other courts. Quitting was not an option. But unlike Ron, Dennis was now on his own. Since he was not on death row, there were no indigent lawyers available for him.

But the Court of Criminal Appeals was not always a rubber stamp for the prosecution. Much to Mark
Barrett’s delight, he received the news on April 16, 1991, that a new trial had been ordered for Greg Wilhoit. The court found it impossible to ignore the miserable job done by George Briggs in defending Greg and ruled that he did not receive adequate representation.

When you’re on trial for your life, hire either the best lawyer in town or the worst. Greg had unwittingly hired the worst, and now he had a new trial.

When an inmate was to be removed from his cell and taken off The Row for any reason, there was never an explanation. Guards simply showed up with orders to get dressed, quickly.

Greg knew he’d won his appeal, though, and when the guards arrived at his cell door, the big day had come. “Pack your stuff,” one of them said, and it was time to leave. In a couple of minutes he stuffed his entire collection of assets into one cardboard box, then walked away with his escorts. Ron had been moved to the other end of the run, and there was no chance of a farewell. As Greg left McAlester, his thoughts were of the friend he was leaving behind.

When he arrived at the jail in Osage County, a bail hearing was quickly arranged by Mark Barrett. With a capital murder charge still pending and a trial date yet to be set, Greg was not exactly a free man. Instead of the usual exorbitant bond that was impossible to make, the judge set bail at $50,000, a sum Greg’s parents and sisters quickly covered.

After five years in jail, four on death row, Greg was free, never to return to a prison cell.

Construction of H Unit had begun in 1990. Virtually everything was made of concrete—floors, walls, ceilings, bunks, bookshelves. To eliminate the chance of shanks being produced, no metal was included in the plans. There were plenty of bars and some glass, but not in the cells. Everything there was concrete.

When the structure was complete, it was covered with dirt. Energy efficiency was the official reason. Natural light and ventilation were extinguished.

When H Unit opened in November 1991, the prison celebrated its new, state-of-the-art death house by throwing a party. Big shots were invited. Ribbons were cut. The prison band was forced to play a few tunes. Tours were given—the future inhabitants were still over in the Big House, a quarter of a mile away. Guests were given the opportunity to pay to sleep one night on a brand-new concrete bunk in the cell of their choice.

After the party, and to work out the kinks, some medium security prisoners were moved in first and watched closely to see what mischief they could create. When H Unit proved sturdy, functional, and escape-proof, it was time to send in the bad boys from F Cellhouse.

The complaining and bitching started immediately. There were no windows, no chance of outside light, no hope of fresh air. Double-celling was implemented, and the cells were too small for two men. The concrete bunks were too hard and only thirty-six inches apart. A stainless-steel toilet/sink was wedged between them, so that a bowel movement was a shared event. The layout of the pods was such that most of the daily chatter—the lifeblood for the prisoners—was cut off. As a non-contact facility, H Unit was designed not only to keep
the guards away from inmates but to isolate the prisoners themselves. The food was worse than on F Cellhouse. The yard, the most cherished area at the old place, was nothing but a concrete box much smaller than a tennis court. Its walls were eighteen feet tall, and the entire area was covered with a thick grate that blocked out whatever light could penetrate the sun dome. It was impossible to see green grass.

The new concrete had not been sealed or painted. Concrete dust was everywhere. It piled up in the corners of the cells. It clung to the walls, settled on the floors, hung in the air, and of course was inhaled by the inmates. Attorneys visiting their clients often left coughing and rasping because of the dust.

The state-of-the-art ventilation system was “closed,” meaning there was no outside circulation at all. This was tolerable until the power went out, which happened often while the bugs were being worked out of the system.

Leslie Delk, an indigent defense lawyer assigned to Ron Williamson, discussed the problems in a letter to a colleague who had sued the prison:

The food situation is horrible and almost every client I have has lost weight. One client has lost 90 pounds in 10 months. I have communicated this with the prison, but of course they tell me he is fine, etc. One thing discovered on a recent trip to the infirmary was that the food is brought over from the old prison where it is prepared behind the walls. When it arrives at H-Unit, there are inmates—shock incarceration guys, I think—that serve it up. These guys are told that they can have whatever is left, so the portions
the death row inmates are now receiving are about half of what the rest of the prison receives. It is my understanding that there is little or no DOC supervision of the food as it is put on the trays for the death row guys. All my clients have complained that the food is always cold now, and that it is so poorly prepared that the men are sick from it and the quantities are so low that most people are forced to purchase food from the canteen so they can get enough to eat. This is of course the prison store that charges whatever they want for the foods they offer. (Usually much higher than we could purchase from a grocery store.) Also many of my clients have no family to help support them so they go without.

H Unit was a shock to the inmates. After hearing rumors for two years about a new, modern $11 million facility, they were stunned when they moved into an underground prison with less space and more restrictions than F Cellhouse.

Ron hated H Unit. His roommate was Rick Rojem, a resident of The Row since 1985 and a calming influence. Rick was a Buddhist who spent hours in meditation and also enjoyed playing the guitar. Privacy was impossible in their cramped cell. They rigged a blanket from the ceiling and between the beds in a lame effort to withdraw into their own worlds.

Rojem was worried about Ron. He had lost interest in reading. His mind and conversation could not stay on one subject. He was medicated at times, but far from getting proper treatment. He would sleep for hours, then pace around the tiny cell for an entire night, mumbling incoherently or chanting about one of his delusions. Then
he would stand at the door and scream in agony. Since they were together twenty-three hours a day, Rick was watching his cell mate go insane, and he couldn’t help him.

Ron lost ninety pounds after moving into H Unit. His hair turned gray, and he looked like a ghost. Annette was waiting one day in the visitors’ room when she saw the guards lead a wiry old man with long, stringy gray hair and a beard into the room. Who is that? she thought. Her brother.

She said, “When I saw them bring this man with long hair and just a skinny, horrible, emaciated-looking man that they brought to visit me that I would not have recognized if I met him on the street, I came home, and I wrote the warden asking him to have Ron checked for AIDS because he looked so gauntish, and knowing the stories you hear about prisons, I asked them to check him for AIDS.”

The warden wrote back and assured her Ronnie did not have AIDS. She fired off another letter and complained about the food, the high prices in the canteen, and the fact that the profits from the canteen went into a fund to help buy exercise equipment for the guards.

In 1992, a psychiatrist named Ken Foster was hired by the prison and soon met Ron Williamson. He found him to be disheveled, disoriented, out of touch with reality, thin, gray, frail, emaciated, in poor physical condition. It was obvious to Dr. Foster, as it should have been to the prison officials, that something was wrong.

Ron’s mental condition was even worse than his physical. His outbursts and explosions were far beyond
normal prison clamor, and it was no secret among the guards and staff that he had lost contact with reality. Dr. Foster witnessed several bouts of the maniacal screaming and noted three general themes: (1) that Ron was innocent, (2) that Ricky Joe Simmons had confessed to the murder and should be prosecuted, and (3) that Ron was in great physical pain, usually in his chest, and he was afraid he was about to die.

Though his symptoms were obvious and extreme, the records reviewed by Dr. Foster indicated that Ron had been receiving no mental health treatment for a long time. The denial of medication for a person as sick as Ron normally results in the onset of psychotic symptoms.

Dr. Foster wrote, “The psychotic reaction and the accompanying deterioration are worsened when a person is under the multiple stresses which accompany being in a death row environment and having the knowledge that you are scheduled to die. The GAF scale, as set forth in authoritative mental health manuals, considers imprisonment a ‘catastrophic’ stressor.”

It was impossible to speculate how much worse the catastrophe might be for an innocent person.

Dr. Foster decided Ron needed better medications in a better environment. Ron would always be mentally ill, but improvements were possible, even for a death row inmate. However, Dr. Foster soon learned that helping sick and condemned prisoners was a very low priority.

He spoke to James Saffle, a regional director with the Department of Corrections, and to Dan Reynolds, the warden at McAlester. Both were familiar with Ron
Williamson and his problems, and both had more important things to worry about.

Ken Foster, though, proved to be a rather stubborn, independent sort who disliked bureaucratic decisions and actually wanted to help his patients. He kept reporting to Saffle and Reynolds and made sure they knew the details of Ron’s serious mental and physical problems. He insisted on meeting with Reynolds at least once a week to review the status of his patients; Ron was always mentioned. And he spoke daily to a deputy warden, gave the routine updates, and made sure the summaries were passed on to the warden.

Repeatedly, Dr. Foster explained to those who ran the prison that Ron was not getting the medicines he needed and that he was deteriorating mentally and physically because of inadequate treatment. He was especially incensed that Ron would not be transferred to the Special Care Unit, or SCU, a building within view of H Unit.

Inmates who exhibited serious mental problems were routinely moved into the SCU, the only facility at McAlester designed for such treatment. However, the DOC had a long-standing policy that denied death row inmates access to the SCU. The official reason was vague, but many capital defense lawyers suspected the policy was in place to help speed along executions. If a severely disturbed death row inmate was properly evaluated, he might be found to be incompetent, thus thwarting a trip to the chamber.

The policy had been challenged many times but remained intractable.

Ken Foster challenged it again. He explained repeatedly to Saffle and Reynolds that he could not adequately treat Ron Williamson without placing him at the
SCU, where he could monitor his condition and regulate his medication. Often his explanations were pointed, heated, and intense. But Dan Reynolds proved stubbornly resistant to the idea of moving Ron and saw no need to improve his treatment. Don’t bother with death row inmates, Reynolds said. They’re going to die anyway.

Dr. Foster’s appeals on behalf of Ron became so bothersome that Warden Reynolds locked him out of the prison.

When the lockout ended, Dr. Foster resumed his efforts to move Ron to the SCU. It took four years.

After his direct appeal was over, Ron’s case entered “post-conviction relief,” the next stage in which he was allowed to present evidence that was not offered at trial.

As was the practice at that time, Bill Luker transferred the file to Leslie Delk, with the Appellate Public Defender’s Office. Her first priority was obtaining better medical treatment for her client. She saw Ron once on F Cellhouse and realized he was a very sick man. After he was transferred to H Unit, she became alarmed at his eroding condition.

Though Delk was not a psychiatrist or psychologist, she had received extensive training in the detection and nature of mental illness. Part of her job as a capital defense attorney was to observe such problems and try to get adequate treatment. She relied on the opinions of mental health experts, but it was difficult with Ron because a proper examination was impossible. As part of the noncontact policy at H Unit, no one could sit in the
same room with the prisoner, not even his lawyer. A psychiatrist trying to examine Ron had to do so through a sheet of glass while talking to him on the phone.

Delk arranged for a Dr. Pat Fleming to do a psychological evaluation of Ron, as required in post-conviction proceedings. Dr. Fleming made three attempts but was unable to complete her assessment. Her patient was agitated, delusional, noncooperative, and hallucinating. The staff informed Dr. Fleming that such behavior was not at all unusual. It was obvious that he was a very disturbed man who was in no condition to assist his attorney or function in any meaningful way. She was severely restricted in her attempt to evaluate Ron because she was not allowed a confidential visit in which she could sit in the same room to question, observe, and administer tests.

Dr. Fleming met with the staff physician on H Unit and detailed her concerns. Later, she was assured that Ron had been seen by mental health professionals from within the prison, but she saw no improvement. She strongly recommended a commitment to Eastern State Hospital for an extended period to stabilize Ron and properly evaluate him.