McMillian’s release to testify about the need for ending the death penalty and for reform of the criminal justice system. They appeared at a United States Senate hearing shortly after Mr. He and Bryan remained close friends, occasionally traveling together to talk to audiences about the death penalty. About 10 years after his release, he began showing symptoms of early onset dementia, which some doctors believed was caused by the trauma of his ordeal on death row. McMillian, he was able to work in Monroe County selling scrap metal. An effort to make the sheriff accountable went all the way to the United States Supreme Court, but the Court ruled that the sheriff could be protected from liability based on immunity laws. Because police, prosecutors, and judges are immune from judgments that require them to make payments to people victimized by abuse of authority and wrongdoing, the settlement compensation was much less than had been hoped.
The case settled out of court after several years of litigation.
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Bryan and the staff at EJI filed civil rights lawsuits against state and local officials for putting him on death row before his trial and for violating his rights. Walter McMillian stayed in Alabama after his release.
The Walter McMillian case is also significant because it was one of the very early cases where a death row prisoner was proved innocent after being sentenced to death despite death penalty reforms in the 1970s and early 1980s. Judge override of life verdicts has been a unique characteristic of the death penalty in Alabama. In Alabama, the trial judge has the authority to override a jury’s verdict of life and impose the death penalty, which is what happened. McMillian of capital murder sentenced him to life imprisonment without parole. Despite that change of venue, the jury that convicted Mr. Lee Key Jr., moved the trial from Monroe County, which is over 40% Black, to Baldwin County, which had a much smaller Black population, making a nearly all-white jury more likely. The case was unique as well because the trial judge, Robert E. McMillian spent 15 months on death row awaiting his trial in an effort to pressure him into pleading guilty. McMillian, he was removed from death row. Myers agreed to give false testimony against Mr. Walter McMillian and Ralph Myers were both placed on death row before going to trial, which is illegal and a rare form of coercion. McMillian’s innocence despite overwhelming evidence. While the Monroeville community loves the Mockingbird story and took great pride in its association with the fictional characters of the book, there was tremendous resistance to recognizing Mr. McMillian was accused of a crime that took place in Monroeville, Alabama, the community where Harper Lee grew up and wrote the beloved novel To Kill a Mockingbird, there were interesting dynamics at play in the case. Sadly, while the McMillian case had some unique features, there are actually lots of people who are innocent who have been sentenced to death in the United States.īecause Mr. The movie accurately introduces other people represented by Bryan Stevenson, including Herbert Richardson, a Vietnam War veteran who was executed in 1989, and Anthony Ray Hinton, who spent nearly 30 years on death row for a crime he did not commit. McMillian’s claim of innocence attracted national attention as 60 Minutes broadcast a story about the case. While the movie condenses the six years of litigation, it mostly tracks the actual account presented in the book. Bryan filed a motion to dismiss all charges the trial court granted it after the district attorney acknowledged Mr.
Bryan appealed the ruling and the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals ordered a new trial because the State withheld evidence of Mr. McMillian a new trial despite overwhelming evidence of innocence, including the recantation of the State’s main witness, Ralph Myers. Over the next six years, Bryan filed multiple legal challenges and conducted several hearings, but the trial court refused to grant Mr. The movie is based on an actual case that is detailed in Bryan Stevenson’s book, Just Mercy, published in 2014.īryan took on Walter McMillian’s case in 1988 to challenge his wrongful conviction and death sentence.
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