Free The Innocent Man by John Grisham

sales, but in his current state he was in no condition to meet and charm anyone. He still referred to himself as a professional baseball player, a close friend of Reggie Jackson’s, but by then the locals in Ada knew better.
    Late in 1979, Annette made an appointment with the district court judge Ronald Jones at the Pontotoc County Courthouse. She explained her brother’s condition and asked if the state or the court system could do anything to help. No, Judge Jones said, not until Ron became a danger to himself or to others.
    O N ONE particularly good day, Ron applied for training at a vocational rehabilitation center in Ada. The counselor there was alarmed at his condition and referred him to Dr. M. P. Prosser at St. Anthony Hospital in Oklahoma City, where he was admitted on December 3, 1979.
    Trouble soon began when Ron demanded privileges that the staff could not provide. He wanted far more than his share of their time and attention and actedas though he was their only patient. When they did not comply with his wishes, he left the hospital, only to return a few hours later and ask to be readmitted.
    On January 8, 1980, Dr. Prosser noted: “This boy has demonstrated rather bizarre and sometimes psychopathic behavior whether he is manic as the counselor in Ada thought or a schizoid individual with sociopathic trends, or the reverse, sociopathic individual with schizoid trends may never be determined… . Long-term treatment may be required but he does not feel he needs treatment for schizophrenia.”
    Ron had been living in a dream since early adolescence, since his glory days on the baseball field, and had never accepted the reality that his career was over. He still believed that “they”—the powers that be in baseball—were going to come get him, put him in the lineup, and make him famous. “This is the real schizophrenic part of his disorder,” Dr. Prosser wrote. “He just wants to get in the ballgame and preferably as one of the stars.”
    Long-term treatment for schizophrenia was suggested, but Ron would not consider it. A complete physical exam was never completed, because he was uncooperative, but Dr. Prosser did observe “a healthy young muscular, active, ambulatory man … in better trim than most persons his age.”
    When he could function, Ron peddled Rawleigh home products door-to-door, through the same Ada neighborhoods where his father had worked. But it was tedious labor, the commissions were small, he had little patience with the required paperwork, and, besides, he was Ron Williamson, the great baseball star, now going door-to-door hawking kitchen products!
    Untreated, unmedicated, and drinking, Ron became a regular at the local watering holes around Ada. He was a sloppy drunk, talking loud, bragging about his baseball career, and bothering women. He frightened many people, and the bartenders and bouncers knew him well. If Ron Williamson showed up to drink, everyone knew it. One of his favorite clubs was the Coachlight, and the bouncers there watched him closely.
    It didn’t take long for the two rape charges in Tulsa to catch up with him. The police began watching, sometimes following him around Ada. He and Bruce Leba were barhopping one night and stopped to fill their car with gas. A cop followed them for a few blocks, then stopped them and accused them of stealing the gas. Though it was nothing but harassment, they narrowly avoided being arrested.
    The arrests, however, began soon enough. In April 1980, two years after his father died, Ron was jailed on his first drunk-driving charge.
    In November, Juanita Williamson convinced her son to seek help for his drinking. At her prodding, Ron walked into the Mental Health Services of Southern Oklahoma office in Ada and was seen by Duane Logue, a substance abuse counselor. He freely admitted his problems, said he’d been drinking for eleven years and doing drugs for at least the past seven, and that the booze increased dramatically after the