Named in Libel Suit
On September, 2007, former Pontotoc County, Oklahoma, District Attorney Bill Peterson, former Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation agent Gary Rogers, and criminalist Melvin Hett filed a civil suit for libel against Grisham and two other authors. They claimed that Grisham and the others critical of Peterson and his prosecution of murder cases conspired to commit libel and generate publicity for themselves by portraying the plaintiffs in a false light and intentionally inflicting emotional distress. Grisham was named due to his publication of the non-fiction book, The Innocent Man. He examined the faults in the investigation and trial of defendants in the murder of a cocktail waitress in Ada, Oklahoma, and the exoneration by DNA evidence more than 12 years later of wrongfully convicted defendants Ron Williamson and Dennis Fritz. The judge dismissed the libel case on September 18, 2008, saying, "The wrongful convictions of Ron Williamson and Dennis Fritz must be discussed openly and with great vigor."
Read more about this topic: John Grisham
Famous quotes containing the words named, libel and/or suit:
“Late in the afternoon, we rode through Brewster, so named after Elder Brewster, for fear he would be forgotten else. Who has not heard of Elder Brewster? Who knows who he was?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Middle-aged adolescents are a libel on the real thing.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“Other men wear white suits in summer and it doesn’t seem to bother them. But my white suit seems to be a little whiter than theirs. I think also that it may have something written on the back of it, although I can’t find it when I take the suit off.”
—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)