“I am deeply troubled by the way the criminal system treated me and the difficulty I had in proving my innocence. I am also worried about others. I believe there are other people under sentence of death who like me not guilty” – Walter McMillian
For this blog post, I focused on Brian Stevenson and his success stories within the justice system. In his career he had aided in the court ruling that children, under the age of 18, not being allowed to be given death penalty or life imprisonment without parole. He created a non-profit organization, Equal Justice Initiative, for the poor and misrepresented that helped save 125 men from death row. Because of his work, Brian Stevenson has received multiple awards such as the MacArthur Grant (web).
The case that he is most known for is the Walter McMillan case. Walter McMillian served six years on death row for a murder he did not commit, previously spending 15 months on death row before he was even convicted. The movie, Just Mercy, describes the role Brian Stevenson played and the effects discrimination, wrongful accusations, and on a community. The movie follows the case of Walter while also demonstrating the different reasons a person would receive the death penalty: being an accomplice to an armed robbery, wrong place at the wrong time, etc. Walter’s case, in particular, was an complete travesty of the system. Brian Stevenson met Walter McMillian in 1988, six years after he was wrongfully committed of the murder of Ronda Morrison in downtown Monroeville, Alabama.
Firstly, he was placed on death row prior to his conviction, that was already unheard of and a violation of his rights. Secondly, there was not one piece of evidence that pointed Mr. McMillian to the crime. There were dozens of people, Black, who testified that during the time of the crime, Walter was at a fish fry 11 miles away (web). The only thing pointing at Walter McMillian was the testimony of a white male who claimed that he gave Walter a ride to the dry cleaners (web). One who was already a felon with multiple charges, coerced by the police. Mr. McMillian was finally released as a free man in March of 1993.
As mentioned in the paragraph, one accuser was a convicted felon who was coerced by the police to give a false testimony. Ralph Myers recanted his statement during the second trial of Walter McMillian. It is said that if he gave a false confession, he would be given a life sentence instead of the death penalty (Death is said to be his biggest fear). According to the textbook, a person would be more likely to give a false confession through a technique called minimization. Minimization is the implicit promise of leniency if they confess (Gruman et al., 2017, 300). This is an interrogation tactic that is self-incriminating and very dangerous as seen through cases such as the Exonerated Five case.
Walter McMillian says that he was targeted due to his affair with a white woman and the fact that his son was married to a white women. It is said that the sheriff claimed that: “I don’t give a damn what you say or what you do. I don’t give a damn what your people say either. I’m going to put twelve people on a jury who are going to find your goddamn black ass guilty.” (McCarthy, 1995) This could be considered interest prejudice, where the jurors would have a particular interest of stake in the outcome of the trial (308), which makes sense as the case only lasted a day and a half. His case would be seen as a “lesson” for the black people, quoting that the sheriff told him so. The pain that he suffered while incarcerated is one that led to early dementia (web). Following this case, Brian Stevenson continued to work at freeing wrongfully convicted felons. Another noticeable case is Anthony Ray Hinton, who was freed in 2016 after spending nearly 30 years on death row for a conspiracy theory (web).
References:
Bryan Stevenson. (2020, February 11). Retrieved March 11, 2021, from https://eji.org/bryan-stevenson/
Gruman, J. A., Schneider, F. W., & Coutts, L. M. (2017). Applied social psychology: Understanding and addressing social and practical problems. Los Angeles: SAGE.
McCarthy, C. (1995, October 10). A matter of death and life. Retrieved March 11, 2021, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1995/10/10/a-matter-of-death-and-life/b7af4803-56aa-4f0f-addd-e048a76a3d19/
Walter McMillian. (2020, January 23). Retrieved March 11, 2021, from https://eji.org/cases/walter-mcmillian/
Hi!
I really loved your post this week and your discussion of Brian Stevenson. I am also a very big fan of Brian Stevenson and his work he does. I read his book Just Mercy my freshman year of college and it is one of the main reasons I would like to focus representing the wrongly convicted in our criminal justice system. The Walter McMillian case was very mind baffling to me when I first heard the story. I feel as though one’s race always plays a role in how their case is handled. One big thing I noticed is that although our system is supposed to assume innocence before guilt, with the African American community, it is the opposite. The system assumes guilt before innocence. This is why African Americans disproportionately account for majority of the system itself as well as why we are the ones who get wrongly accused often. Brian Stevenson is such an inspiration to me and I am so happy his work is getting more and more popular for the public to learn from him. Great post!
References:
Bryan Stevenson. (2020, February 11). Retrieved March 11, 2021, from https://eji.org/bryan-stevenson/
Gruman, J. A., Schneider, F. W., & Coutts, L. M. (2017). Applied social psychology: Understanding and addressing social and practical problems. Los Angeles: SAGE.