You can’t threaten to kill someone every day year after year and not harm them…break them in ways that are really profound. It reveals this disconnect that I’m so concerned about when I think about our criminal justice system.ĭespite winning McMillan’s freedom, Stevenson reminds us of the trauma that the justice system brings to those condemned. This is one of the few cases I’ve worked on where I got … death threats because we were fighting to free this man who was so clearly innocent.
McMillian was found guilty and held on death row for six years. Three witnesses testified against McMillian, while six black witnesses, including a police officer, testified he was at a church fish fry – 11 miles away from the scene of the crime when it occurred. This made McMillian vulnerable to prosecution. McMillian had little dealings with the law but had been having an affair with a white woman. McMillian was a young man on death row for killing 18 years old, Ronda Morrison, a white woman from Monroeville, Alabama, the home of Harper Lee, the author of “To Kill a Mocking Bird”.
Most of the book is about Stevenson’s most famous case representing Walter McMillian. He’s representative of what we’ve done to thousands of people. McMillian is in some ways a microcosm of that reality. Today, he has won relief for condemned prisoners secured the release of many innocent survivors fought to end the death penalty fought to end life sentences without parole for children (and won) and is fighting for those incarcerated with mental illness – who are continuously failed by the justice system. Stevenson graduated from Harvard Law School and is the co-founder of the Equal Justice Initiative: a legal practice dedicated to defending those most in need.
The great-grandson of slaves from Virginia, Stevenson’s grandfather was murdered for his black-and-white TV when he was a teenager.
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