In a blistering, 190-page court ruling handed down in 2019, a federal judge reached the firm conclusion that Karl Fontenot should be freed over a 1984 kidnapping and killing in Ada, Oklahoma.
The decision blasted government prosecutors and law enforcers for their interrogation tactics, lack of evidence, and handling of witnesses.
After Fontenot had spent 35 years confined in Oklahoma’s merciless prison system, the judge was setting him free.
Other judges have concluded that evidence central to the government’s case against Fontenot raised as many questions as it answered.
Fontenot is one of six troubling cases from Ada in recent decades that involved allegations of wrongful convictions. The town’s population is about 17,000.
Keep reading. There’s more.
Joe Knows
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No body
Karl Fontenot is not a client of Norwood.Law.
But we are battling for another of the wrongfully convicted men from Ada, Perry Lott, who was found actually innocent of rape in 2025 after being confined for 30 years.
In the meantime, judges have before thrown out the cases of both Karl Fontenot and his co-defendant in the case, Tommy Ward, in separate rulings.
But the government in Oklahoma for decades has refused to admit defeat.
No human remains or body of a victim had been found at the time of the trial of Fontenot and Ward.
When a body was finally found, it told a dramatically different story than the police narrative.
In fact, there was never much evidence in the case at all when Ward and Fontenot were convicted.
If the government nonetheless has its way, Karl Fontenot could go back to Oklahoma’s grueling prison system.
Netflix
Karl Fontenot spent 35 years locked up before the system questioned itself and set him free.
Fontenot was one of four men whose fraught Ada convictions appeared on the 2018 Netflix series “The Innocent Man.” The series was based on a true-crime book of the same title written by legendary suspense author John Grisham.
Over the years, Grisham has remained devoted to Fontenot and Ward and worked for their release. Despite Grisham’s starpower, however, Oklahoma continues to insist that Karl Fonentenot is guilty of murder.
Yet when Donna Denice Haraway’s body was finally discovered, it only showed a single bullet hole in her skull. Karl Fontenot and Tommy Ward supposedly stabbed and burned the victim and didn’t shoot her.
The case’s deficiencies don’t end there.
In the news
While Fontenot is not one of our clients, his case is instructive.
Norwood.Law on its own has freed five other people who spent decades in prison for wrongful convictions.
The number of people nationwide who are convicted on little or no physical evidence or on questionable witnesses is stunning. It’s not the story we get from police shows on TV.
So keep reading.
If the government accuses you of a crime, call Joe Norwood for a consultation at 918-582-6464.
Fall apart
Despite major court decisions in recent years that favored Karl Fontenot, today it’s entirely possible that he’ll be dragged back to prison.
Oklahoma prosecutors refuse to accept past rulings.
In 2024, a Tulsa judge seemingly caused the case against Fontenot to fall apart by throwing out crucial evidence.
The evidence was an interrogation of Fontenot who has limited intellectual abilities. The interrogation raised serious questions about whether Fontenot understood what was happening.
But a stubborn state of Oklahoma eventually convinced a state judge to reinstate the evidence.
Said Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond following that decision:
“The State must have the opportunity to present corroborating evidence before a court rules on the admissibility of a confession. This case involves the brutal murder of a young newlywed with her whole life ahead of her, and justice demands that we be allowed to present our case in full.”
Joe’s victories
Joe Norwood’s record says it all.
He’s won cases against foreign product manufacturers. He’s won cases against the government over wrongful convictions. He’s won cases against insurance companies and banking interests.
If you need help, Norwood.Law has your back.
Check out Norwood.Law’s record below on freeing the wrongfully convicted.
- Glynn Simmons | Longest-serving wrongfully convicted man in America at 48 years. With Norwood.Law fighting by his side, Simmons was declared fully innocent by an Oklahoma judge in 2023. There was never any physical evidence in the case. There was only a highly questionable single witness. Simmons was later given a $7.15 million settlement.
- Corey Atchison | Spent nearly 30 years in Oklahoma’s prison system. With Norwood.Law fighting by his side, he was declared fully innocent of murder and released in 2019. In this case, too, there was no physical evidence. Three witnesses said they were coerced by police and recanted testimony given against Atchison. He was later given a $4.5 million settlement.
- Demarchoe Carpenter and Malcolm Scott | Strikingly similar to the case of Corey Atchison. Scott and Carpenter from Tulsa spent over 20 years in prison before Norwood.Law succeeded in freeing them in 2016. They’d been convicted of a driveby killing. They were later awarded a $15 million settlement. There was no physical evidence in the case. Two eyewitnesses recanted and changed their stories.
- Perry Lott | Convicted of rape in Ada, Oklahoma, and sent to prison for 30 years before Norwood.Law stepped in to help. DNA evidence ultimately excluded Lott from the rape kit in the case. Lott has not so far been compensated. Lott maintained his innocence from the beginning. He was given a lie-detector test in 2019 that showed “no deception.”
Newlywed
Victim Denice Haraway of Ada was a 24-year-old college student and newlywed when she vanished in 1984.
Karl Fontenot was 19 at the time. Fontenot’s dad had abandoned the family. His mom was killed by a car in front of him. Fontenot blamed himself for her death.
Oklahoma law enforcers are still pushing ahead in his case. That’s even though a federal appeals court has said that Fontenot’s confession “rang false in almost every particular.”
The court spent several pages describing how the confession didn’t match the facts:
“By the time investigators located Ms. Haraway’s body, it was apparent that many of the details provided in the confessions of Mr. Ward and Mr. Fontenot were false.”
A Tulsa County judge in 2024 called Fontenot’s confession “fatally unreliable.”
Joseph M. Norwood is a Tulsa attorney with the courtroom expertise you need. Contact his office at 918-582-6464
By G.W. Schulz