 John Grisham: Judge dismissed libel suit
At last, John Grisham, the famous author, has received a sigh of relief. A federal judge has dismissed a libel lawsuit that was launched against him and two other writers over books that they have written about the wrongful conviction of two men in a murder case that occurred in the year 1982.
More news about John Grisham has been inferred from quite a number of sources. According to them, the lawsuit was launched last year by former Pontotoc County District Attorney Bill Peterson, former Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation investigator Gary Rogers and Melvin Hett, a state criminal. All three of them have helped in winning the original convictions in the slaying of cocktail waitress Debbie Sue Carter.
The plaintiffs have brought out the allegation that the defendants conspired to commit libel and also generate publicity for themselves by placing the plaintiffs in a false light and intentionally inflicted emotional distress.
But U.S. District Judge Ronald White denied that those claims in his ruling on Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Oklahoma.
The two men who are initially convicted in the slaying namely Ron Williamson and Dennis Fritz were later cleared by DNA evidence and also got release after twelve years of imprisonment.
In his ruling, the judge wrote that it was important to analyze and then criticize the judicial system "so that past mistakes do not become future ones."
"The wrongful convictions of Ron Williamson and Dennis Fritz must be discussed openly and with great vigor," added White further.
The lawsuit has named John Grisham, whose account was named "The Innocent Man", along with his publishing company and the authors and publishing companies of two other books. Barry Scheck, founder of the New York-based Innocence Project and an attorney for one of the men falsely accused in the murder also was named as a defendant
"This is a victory for free speech and for holding officials publicly accountable for their role in wrongful convictions," Scheck added this in statement.
However on Wednesday a message for John Grisham's publishing company was not immediately returned.  |
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