Just Mercy

It is now 1988. Stevenson is now a full-fledged lawyer still working for the SPDC. He receives a call from an Alabama judge named Robert E. Lee Key—the fact that he is named after a Confederate general is not lost on Stevenson. Judge Key has heard that Stevenson plans to represent a man named Walter McMillian, a black man on death row for the murder of a white woman. Judge Key tries to persuade Stevenson not to take the case—Walter is a major drug dealer, Judge Key says, before asking if Stevenson is even a member of the Alabama bar association, given that he lives in Georgia. Stevenson is. Judge Key does not believe Walter is truly poor, either, and therefore not in need of free legal services. Stevenson is undeterred. He has already met Walter, who is adamant that he is innocent of murder. Stevenson chooses to believe him.

After the call with Judge Key, Stevenson reviews the evidence in Walter’s case. The murder trial was short. Walter was born and raised in Monroeville, Alabama, the birthplace of author Harper Lee and the approximate setting of her famous novel To Kill a Mockingbird. The novel’s plot involves a black man named Tom Robinson who is falsely accused and convicted of raping a white woman. He is shot while attempting a prison break. Stevenson notes that despite these themes of racial injustice and white violence, Monroeville remains a deeply segregated, deeply racist place. Walter grew up in a sharecropping family before starting his own business. Unhappy in his marriage, he began an affair with a local (married) white woman, Karen Kelly. The interracial affair created a local scandal, and Stevenson notes the long history of public opposition to black-white romantic relationships in America.

Shortly after the affair came to light, a white teenager named Ronda Morrison was found murdered in normally sleepy Monroeville. Ronda was the daughter of a prominent local family, and the police felt pressure to close the case despite no good leads. The police eventually targeted Ralph Myers, a drug-using white man with a lengthy criminal record. Ralph was involved romantically with Karen Kelly, whom Walter was now trying to break up with. Ralph and Karen had been implicated in the death of a different white woman named Vickie Pittman. During interrogations, Ralph stated that Walter had been involved in Vickie’s murder as well, and that Walter alone had killed Ronda. There was no actual evidence against Walter, however—Ralph couldn’t even pick him out an informal lineup.

Stevenson recounts the events of his first years working for the SPDC. To survive on his small salary, he moves in with a friend from Harvard, a “white kid from North Carolina” (35) named Charlie. As he works, he begins to plan a new law project to represent death row inmates in Alabama, which executes a shocking number of people each year—almost all men, most black. Meanwhile, he takes cases about prisoner abuse at Southern jails and prisons. In one case, a man brought in on a traffic violation is beaten by guards and denied his asthma inhaler. The man dies. In another case, a black teenage boy is shot after running a red light. The police claim he was reaching for a gun. He was reaching for his driver’s license.

One night, Stevenson arrives at his apartment complex after a long, grueling day of work. He listens to his favorite song on the radio—“Stand!” by Sly and the Family Stone. He notices a police presence on his block and decides to go into his apartment. When he opens his car door, a police officer points a loaded weapon at him. Stevenson is terrified but remains compliant and calm as the officers throw him against the car and illegally search it. Finding nothing, they release him. “‘We’re letting you go. You should be happy,’” (42) one officer says. Stevenson files an official complaint but is condescendingly brushed off. He decides to begin speaking to youth groups, church groups, and community organizations about demanding police accountability. After one talk, he is approached by an older man in a wheelchair. The man was involved in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and shows Stevenson all his scars from police brutality—he calls them “medals of honor” (46). After this encounter, Steven resolves to open his own Alabama office.

Stevenson returns to the facts of Walter’s case. Despite no evidence against Walter other than Ralph Myers’ shoddy testimony, Walter is arrested. The charge is sodomy—Ralph also accused Walter of raping him, and anti-homosexuality laws allow him to be held. Sherriff Tate laces his interrogation of Walter with racial slurs and references to a lynching in Mobile three years previous. Law enforcements sees all the holes in Ralph’s story, so find Bill Hooks, a local jailhouse snitch, to say he saw Walter’s distinctive truck near the crime scene. Walter is indicted for the murder, and the local white community reacts with “joy and relief” (50). Black residents, some of whom saw Walter at a fish fry at the time of the murder, tell the Sherriff the wrong man was arrested, but they are ignored. Ralph, seeing how serious this has become, tries to recant. Both Ralph and Walter are held on death row at Holman prison, despite this being illegal for pretrial defendants.

Living conditions in Holman are brutal. Ralph and Walter are locked in tiny cells for 23 hours a day. They must daily face the sight of the yellow electric chair, nicknamed Yellow Mama. They hear about grisly execution details from other inmates. Other inmates encourage Walter to file a complaint, but he is illiterate and so cannot. After Ralph experiences (from a distance, in his cell) his first execution, he has a mental collapse. Though he had previously refused to testify against Walter, he now reconsiders. Sherriff Tate agrees to move him from death row in exchange for testimony. Judge Key and District Attorney Bill Pearson conspire to move the trial from Monroe County (with a large black population) to Baldwin County, which is heavily white, despite the illegality of this act. Ralph once again recants. Tate sends him a local mental hospital, which deems him fit to testify. Ralph returns to death row at Holman and eventually agrees to testify.

The trial is brief. The DA uses all his jury selection strikes to exclude all but one black juror. Ralph’s testimony is erratic and borderline nonsensical. Walter notes, with horror, that “Everyone seemed to be rushing to get the trial over with” (66). Despite obvious problems with witness testimony and a timeline that makes no sense, the jury finds Walter guilty.