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Chapter Nine

I’m Here

Finally, the date for Walter McMillian’s hearing had arrived. We would now have an opportunity to present Ralph Myers’s new testimony and all the exculpatory evidence we’d discovered in police records that had never been disclosed.

Michael and I had gone over the case a dozen times, thinking through the best way to present the evidence of Walter’s innocence. Our biggest concern was Myers, mostly because we knew he would feel incredible pressure once he was brought back to the county courthouse, and he’d broken under pressure before. We were consoled by the fact that so much of our evidence was documentary and could be admitted without the complications and unpredictability that Myers’s testimony might introduce.

We now had a paralegal on staff, so we brought her into the case. Brenda Lewis was a former Montgomery police officer who joined us after seeing more abuses of power than she could tolerate at the police department. An African American woman, she was adept even in environments where her gender or race made her an outsider. We had asked her to touch base with our witnesses before the hearing to go over last-minute details and calm their nerves.

Chapman had called in the state attorney general’s office to help defend Walter’s conviction, and they’d sent Assistant Attorney General Don Valeska, a longtime prosecutor with a reputation for being intense and combative. Valeska was a white man in his forties whose fit, medium frame suggested someone who stayed active; the glasses he wore added to his serious demeanor. His brother Doug was the district attorney in Houston County, and both men were aggressive and unapologetic in their prosecution of “bad guys.” Michael and I had reached out to Chapman once more before the hearing to see if we could persuade him to reopen the investigation and independently reexamine whether McMillian was guilty. But by now, Chapman and all of the law enforcement officers had grown tired of us. They seemed increasingly hostile whenever they had to deal with us. I had considered reporting to them the bomb threats and death threats we’d received, since they were likely coming from people in Monroe County, but I wasn’t sure anyone in the sheriff’s or D.A.’s office would care.

The new judge on the case, Judge Thomas B. Norton Jr., had also grown weary of us. We’d had several pretrial hearings on different motions during which he would sometimes become frustrated because of the bickering between the lawyers. We kept insisting on obtaining all files and evidence the State had in its possession. We had uncovered so much exculpatory evidence that had not been disclosed previously that we were sure there was still more that had not been turned over. The judge finally told us that we were fishing after we’d made our ninth or tenth request for more police and prosecution files. I suspect that Judge Norton had scheduled the final Rule 32 hearing in part because he wanted to get this contentious, complicated case off his docket and out of his court.

In the last pretrial appearance, the judge had asked, “How much time will you need to present your evidence, Mr. Stevenson?”

“We’d like to reserve a week, your honor.”

“A week? You’ve got to be joking. For a Rule 32 hearing? The trial in this case only lasted a day and a half.”

“Yes, sir. We believe this is an extraordinary case and there are several witnesses and—”

“Three days, Mr. Stevenson. If you can’t make your case in three days after all of this drama you’ve stirred up, you don’t really have anything.” “Judge, I—”

“Adjourned.”

After spending another long day in Monroeville tracking down a few final witnesses, Michael and I went back to the office to plot out how to present all of the evidence in the narrow amount of time the judge was giving us. We needed to make the complexity of the case and the multiple ways that Walter’s rights had been violated coherent and understandable to the judge. Another concern was Myers and his love of fantastical narration, so we sat down with him a few days before the hearing and tried to make it as plain as possible.

“No long excursions about police corruption,” I said. “Just answer the questions accurately and honestly, Ralph.”

“I always do,” Ralph said confidently.

“Wait, did you just say you always do?” Michael asked. “What are you talking about, you always do? Ralph, you lied through your ass the entire trial. That’s what we’re going to expose at this hearing.” “I know,” Myers said coolly. “I meant I always tell y’all the truth.”

“Don’t freak me out, Ralph. Just testify truthfully,” Michael said.

Ralph had been calling our office almost daily with an unending stream of strange thoughts, ideas, and conspiracies. I was frequently too busy to talk to him, so Michael had been fielding most of the calls and had become increasingly worried about Ralph’s unique perspective on the world. But we could do no more about it.

We arrived at the courthouse the morning of the hearing early and anxious. We were both dressed in dark suits, white shirts, and muted ties. I usually dressed as conservatively as possible for court. I was a young, bearded black man, and even when there was no jury I still tried to meet the court’s expectation of what a lawyer looked like, if only for the sake of my clients. We first went to check on Myers to make sure he had arrived safely and was in a stable state of mind before the hearing began. The Baldwin County Sheriff’s Department deputies had brought Ralph from the prison in St. Clair County to the courthouse the night before the hearing. The five-hour trip through the nighttime roads of southern Alabama had clearly unnerved Ralph. We met with him in his holding cell; he was palpably anxious. Worse, he was quiet and reserved, which was even more unusual. After we finished that unsettling meeting, I went to see Walter, who was also at the courthouse in one of the holding cells. Being back at the courthouse where his fate had seemingly been sealed four years earlier had shaken him as well, but he forced himself to smile when I walked in.

“Was the trip okay?” I asked.

“Everything is good. Just hoping for something better than the last time I was here.”

I nodded sympathetically and reviewed with him what I thought would unfold over the next few days.

The holding cells for prisoners were in the basement of the courthouse, and after meeting with Walter, I made my way upstairs to get ready for court to begin. When I walked into the courtroom, I was shocked by what I saw. Dozens of people from the community—mostly black and poor—had packed the viewing area. On both sides of the hearing room, people from Walter’s family, people who had attended the fish fry on the day of the crime, people we’d interviewed over the past several months, people who knew Walter from working with him, even Sam Crook and his posse, were crammed into the courtroom. Minnie and Armelia smiled as I walked into court.

Tom Chapman then walked in with Don Valeska, and they both scanned the room. I could tell from the looks on their faces that they were unhappy about the crowd. Tate, Larry Ikner, and Benson—the law enforcement team primarily responsible for Walter’s prosecution—piled in behind the prosecutors and sat down in the courtroom as well. A deputy sheriff escorted the parents of Ronda Morrison to the front of the court just before the hearing began. When the judge took the bench, the crowd of black faces noisily rose as one and sat back down. Many of the black community members looked dressed for church. The men were in suits, and some of the women wore hats. It took them a few seconds to settle into silence, which seemed to annoy Judge Norton. But I was energized by their presence and happy for Walter that so many people had come out to support him.

Judge Norton was a balding white man in his fifties. He wasn’t a tall man, but the elevated bench made him as imposing as any judge. He had managed some of our earlier preliminary hearings in a suit, but today he was in his robe, gavel firmly in hand.

“Gentlemen, are we ready to proceed?” Judge Norton asked.

“We are, Your Honor,” I replied. “But we intend to call several of the law enforcement officers present in the courtroom, and I would like to invoke the rule of sequestration.” In criminal cases, witnesses who will be testifying are required to sit outside the courtroom so they can’t alter their testimony based on what other witnesses say.

Valeska was on his feet immediately. “No, Judge. That’s not going to happen. These are the investigators who figured out this heinous crime, and we need them in court to present our case.” I stayed on my feet. “The State doesn’t bear the burden of presenting a case in these proceedings, Your Honor; we do. This isn’t a criminal trial but a postconviction evidentiary hearing.” “Judge, they’re the ones that are trying to retry this case and we need our people inside,” Valeska countered.

The judge jumped in with, “Well, it does sound like you’re trying to retry the case, Mr. Stevenson, so I’m going to allow the State to keep the crime investigators in the courtroom.” It was not a good start. I decided to proceed with an opening statement before calling Myers as our first witness. I wanted the judge to understand that we weren’t simply defending Mr. McMillian from a different angle than his original lawyers. I wanted him to know that we had dramatic new evidence of innocence that exonerated Walter and that justice demanded his immediate release. We wouldn’t succeed if the judge didn’t know how to hear the evidence.

“Your Honor, the State’s case against Walter McMillian turned entirely on the testimony of Ralph Myers, who had several prior felony convictions and another capital murder case pending against him in Escambia County at the time of Mr. McMillian’s trial. At trial, Mr. McMillian asserted that he is innocent and that he did not know Mr. Myers at the time of this crime. He has maintained his innocence throughout these proceedings.” The judge had been fidgeting and had seemed distracted when I started, so I paused. Even if he didn’t agree I wanted him to hear what I was saying. I stopped talking until I was sure that he was paying close attention. Finally he made eye contact with me, so I continued.

“There is no question that Walter McMillian was convicted of capital murder based on the testimony of Ralph Myers. There was no other evidence to establish Mr. McMillian’s guilt for capital murder at trial other than Myers’s testimony. The State had no physical evidence linking Mr. McMillian to this crime, the State had no motive, the State had no witnesses to the crime, the State had only the testimony of Ralph Myers.

“At trial, Myers testified that he was unknowingly and unwillingly made part of a capital murder and robbery on November 1, 1986, when Walter McMillian saw him at a car wash and asked him to drive McMillian’s truck because his ‘arm hurt.’ Myers stated that he drove Mr. McMillian to Jackson Cleaners, subsequently went into the cleaners, and saw McMillian with a gun, placing money in a brown bag. Another man, who was white, was also present in the cleaners. Myers testified this man had black-gray hair and allegedly talked to McMillian. Myers asserted that he was shoved and threatened by Mr. McMillian when he went into the cleaners. The mysterious third person, who is circumstantially presumed to be in charge, allegedly instructed McMillian to ‘get rid of Myers,’ which Mr. McMillian said he couldn’t do because he was out of bullets. The white man in charge has never been identified or arrested by the state. The State has not been looking for a third person, a ringleader for this crime, because I think they recognize that this person doesn’t exist.” I paused again to let the meaning of this sink in. “Based on the testimony of Ralph Myers, Walter McMillian was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death. As you’re about to hear, the testimony of Ralph Myers was completely false. Again, Your Honor, the testimony of Ralph Myers at trial was completely false.” I took a moment before turning to the bailiff to call Myers to the stand. The courtroom was silent until the deputy opened the door to the holding area and Ralph Myers walked into the courtroom. There was an audible reaction to his presence. Ralph had aged visibly since the last time many of the people in the courtroom had seen him; I could hear murmurs about how his hair had grayed. Dressed in his prison whites, Myers once again appeared small and sad to me as he climbed up onto the witness stand. He looked around the courtroom nervously before raising his hand and swearing an oath to tell the truth. I waited until the courtroom became quiet. Judge Norton was looking at Myers attentively.

I walked over to begin my examination. After asking him to state his name for the record and establishing that he had previously appeared in court and testified against Walter McMillian, it was time to get to the heart of things.

I walked closer to the witness stand.

“Mr. Myers, was the testimony that you gave at Mr. McMillian’s trial true?” I was hoping that the judge couldn’t see I was holding my breath waiting for Ralph to answer. Ralph looked at me coolly but then spoke very clearly and confidently.

“Not at all.” There was more murmuring in the courtroom now, but the crowd quickly quieted to hear more.

“Not at all,” I repeated before continuing. I wanted Ralph’s recantation to sink in, but I didn’t want to hesitate too long because we needed a lot more.

“Did you see Mr. McMillian on the day that Ronda Morrison was murdered?”

“Absolutely not.” Ralph looked steady as he spoke.

“Did you drive his truck into Monroeville on that day?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Did you go into Jackson Cleaners when Ronda Morrison was murdered?”

“No. Never did.”

I didn’t want the court to think that Ralph was robotically denying everything I asked him, so I asked a question that required an affirmative answer. “Now, at Mr. McMillian’s trial, did you give some testimony that there was a white man inside the cleaners when you went inside?” “Yes, I did.”

I had gone as long as I dared asking Ralph yes/no questions. “What was that testimony, please?”

“As I can recall, the testimony was that I had overheard Walter McMillian saying something to this guy, and I had also recalled saying that I had seen the back part of his head, but that’s just about all I can recall on that.” “Was that testimony true, Mr. Myers?”

“No, it wasn’t.” Now the judge leaned in to listen with rapt attention.

“Were any of the allegations you made against Walter McMillian as being involved in the Ronda Morrison murder true?”

Ralph paused and looked around the courtroom before he answered. For the first time there was emotion in his voice, regret or remorse.

“No.”

It seemed that everyone in the courtroom had been holding their breath but now there was an audible buzz from many of Walter’s supporters.

I had a copy of the trial transcript and took Ralph through every sentence of his testimony against Walter. Statement by statement he acknowledged that his previous testimony was entirely false. Myers was direct and persuasive. He would frequently turn his head to look Judge Norton directly in the eye as he spoke. When I made him repeat the parts of his testimony about being coerced to testify falsely, Ralph remained calm and conveyed absolute sincerity. Even during the lengthy cross-examination by Chapman, Myers was unwavering. After relentless questioning about why he was changing his testimony and Chapman’s suggestion that someone was putting him up to this, Ralph became indignant. He looked at the prosecutor and said: Me, I can simply look in your face and anybody else’s face dead eye to eyeball and tell you that that’s all I—anything that was told about McMillian was a lie.… As far as I know, McMillian didn’t have anything to do with this because on the day, on the day they say this happened, I didn’t even see McMillian. And that’s exactly what I told lots of people.

On re-direct examination, I asked Ralph to acknowledge once again that his trial testimony was false and that he had knowingly put an innocent man on death row. Then I took a moment and walked over to the defense table to make sure I hadn’t forgotten anything. I reviewed my notes and then glanced at Michael. “Are we okay?” Michael looked astonished. “Ralph was great. He was really, really great.”

I looked at Walter and only then realized that his eyes were moist. He was shaking his head from side to side in disbelief. I put my hand on his shoulder before announcing to the court that Myers could be excused. We had no further questions.

Myers stood up to leave the courtroom. As the deputies led him to a side door, he looked apologetically at Walter before being escorted out. I’m not sure Walter saw him.

People in the courtroom started whispering again. I heard one of Walter’s relatives, in a muted tone, say, “Thank you, Jesus!”

The next challenge was to rebut the testimony of Bill Hooks and Joe Hightower, who had claimed to see Walter’s modified “low-rider” truck pulling out from the cleaners about the time Ronda Morrison was murdered.

I called Clay Kast to the stand. The white mechanic testified that McMillian’s truck was not a low-rider in November 1986 when Ronda Morrison was murdered. Kast had records and clearly remembered modifying Walter’s truck in May 1987, over six months after the day when Hooks and Hightower claimed they’d seen a low-rider truck at the cleaners. We finished the day with Woodrow Ikner, a Monroeville police officer who testified that he was the first on the scene and that the body of Ronda Morrison was not where Myers had testified it was. Ikner said it was clear from his observation of the murder scene that Morrison had been shot in the back after a struggle that had started in the bathroom and ended in the rear of the cleaners, where the body was found. Ikner’s description of the scene contradicted the assertion that Myers had made at trial about seeing Morrison near the front counter. More significantly, Ikner testified that he’d been asked by Pearson, the trial prosecutor, to testify that Morrison’s body had been dragged through the store from the front counter to the spot where it was found. Ikner was indignant on the stand as he recalled the conversation. He knew that such testimony would be false and had told the prosecutors that he refused to lie. He was soon after discharged from the police department.

Evidentiary hearings, like jury trials, can be exhausting. I had done the direct examination of all of the witnesses and was surprised when I realized that it was already 5:00 P.M. The hearing was going well. I was excited and energized to be able, finally, to lay out all of the evidence proving Walter’s innocence. I kept an eye on Judge Norton to make sure he was still engaged, and he seemed visibly affected by the proceedings. I believed the concerned look on his face revealed confusion about what he was going to do in light of this evidence, and I considered the judge’s newfound confusion and concern to be real progress.

All of the witnesses we called during the first day were white, and none had any loyalties to Walter McMillian. It seemed that Judge Norton had not expected that. When Clay Kast acknowledged that the truck the state witnesses described as a “low-rider” wasn’t modified until close to seven months after the crime took place, the judge furiously scribbled notes, the worry lines on his face deepening. When Woodrow Ikner announced that he had been fired for trying to be honest about the evidence against McMillian, the judge seemed shaken. This was the first evidence we presented that suggested that people in law enforcement had been so focused on convicting Walter that they were prepared to ignore or even hide evidence that contradicted their case.

After Woodrow Ikner completed his testimony, it was deep into the afternoon. The judge looked at the clock and called it a day. I wanted to keep going, to continue until midnight if necessary, but I realized that that wasn’t going to happen. I walked over to Walter.

“We have to stop now?” he asked worriedly.

“Yes, but we’ll just pick up and keep going tomorrow morning.” I smiled at him, and I was pleased when he smiled back.

Walter looked at me excitedly. “Man, I can’t tell you how I’m feeling right now. All this time I’ve been waiting for the truth and been hearing nothing but lies. Right now feels incredible. I just—” A uniformed deputy walked over and interrupted us.

“We need to take him back to the holding cell, you’ll have to talk there.” The middle-aged white officer seemed provoked. I didn’t pay it much attention and told Walter I’d come down later.

As people filed out of the courtroom you could see hope growing among Walter’s family. They came up to me and gave me hugs. Walter’s sister Armelia, his wife Minnie, and his nephew Giles were all talking excitedly about the evidence we’d presented.

When we got back to the hotel, Michael was pumped up, too. “Chapman should just call you and say he wants to drop the charges against Walter and let him go home.” “Let’s not hold our breath waiting for that call,” I replied.

Chapman had seemed troubled as we left the courthouse. I still had some hope that he might turn around on this and even help us, but we definitely couldn’t plan on that.

I arrived at the courthouse early the next morning to visit Walter in his basement cell before the proceedings began. When I headed upstairs, I was confused to see a throng of black folks sitting outside the courtroom in the courthouse lobby. It was just about time for the proceedings to begin. I went up to Armelia, who was sitting with the others outside the courtroom, and she looked at me with concern.

“What’s wrong?” I asked. “Why aren’t y’all inside the courtroom?”

I looked around the lobby. If there had been a huge crowd yesterday, today’s hearing had brought more people, including several clergy members and older people of color I’d never seen before.

“They won’t let us in, Mr. Stevenson.”

“What do you mean they won’t let you in?”

“We tried to go in earlier, and they told us we couldn’t come in.”

A young man in a deputy sheriff’s uniform was standing in front of the entrance to the courtroom. I walked over to him and he put his arm up to stop me.

“I want to go into the courtroom,” I said firmly.

“You can’t come in.”

“What do you mean I can’t come in? There is a hearing scheduled and I want to go inside.”

“I’m sorry, sir, you can’t come into the courtroom.”

“Why not?” I asked.

He stood there silently. Finally, I added, “I’m the defense attorney. I think I have to be able to go inside the courtroom.”

He looked at me closely and was clearly perplexed. “Um, I don’t know. I’ll have to go and check.” He disappeared inside the courtroom. He came back a few moments later and grinned at me tentatively. “Um, you can come in.” I pushed by the deputy, opened the door, and saw that the entire courtroom had been altered. Inside the courtroom door they had placed a large metal detector, on the other side of which was an enormous German shepherd held back by a police officer. The courtroom was already half filled. The benches that had been filled by Walter’s supporters the previous day were now mostly occupied by older white people. Clearly the people here were supporting the Morrisons and the prosecution. Chapman and Valeska were already sitting at the prosecutor’s table, acting as if nothing was going on. I was livid.

I walked over to Chapman, “Who told the deputies not to let the folks outside come into the courtroom?” I asked. They looked at me as if they didn’t know what I was talking about. “I’m going to speak to the judge about this.” I spun on my heel and went directly to the judge’s chambers, and the prosecutors followed me. When I explained to Judge Norton that McMillian’s family and supporters had been told that they couldn’t come into the courtroom, even though the State’s supporters had been let in, the judge rolled his eyes and looked annoyed.

“Mr. Stevenson, your people will just have to get here earlier,” he said dismissively.

“Judge, the problem isn’t that they weren’t here early. The problem is they were told they couldn’t come into the courtroom.”

“No one is being denied entrance to the courtroom, Mr. Stevenson.”

He turned to his bailiff, who left the room. I followed the bailiff and saw him whisper something to the deputy outside the courtroom. McMillian’s supporters would be let into the courtroom—now that half the courtroom was already filled.

I walked over to where two ministers had assembled all of Walter’s supporters and tried to explain the situation.

“I’m sorry, everyone,” I said. “They’ve done something really inappropriate today. They’ll let you in now, but the courtroom is already half filled with people here to support the State. There won’t be enough seats for everyone.” One of the ministers, a heavyset African American man dressed in a dark suit with a large cross around his neck, walked over to me. “Mr. Stevenson, it’s okay. Please don’t worry about us. We’ll have a few people be our representatives today and we will be here even earlier tomorrow. We won’t let nobody turn us around, sir.” The ministers began selecting people to be representatives in the courtroom. They told Minnie, Armelia, Walter’s children, and several others to go on in. When the ministers called out Mrs. Williams, everyone seemed to smile. Mrs. Williams, an older black woman, stood up and prepared herself to enter the courtroom. She took great care in fixing her hair just right. On top of her gray hair she wore a small hat whose placement she precisely adjusted. She then pulled out a long blue scarf that she delicately wrapped around her neck. Only then did she slowly begin to make her way to the courtroom door where the line of McMillian supporters had formed. I found her dignified ritual riveting, but when the spell was broken I realized that I needed to get going myself. I hadn’t spent the morning preparing for witnesses as I had intended but had instead been drawn into this foolish mistreatment of McMillian’s supporters. I walked past the line of patient people and went inside to begin preparing for the hearing.

I was standing at counsel’s table when out of the corner of my eye I saw that Mrs. Williams had made it to the courtroom door. She was quite elegant in her hat and scarf. She wasn’t a large woman, but there was something commanding about her presence—I couldn’t help but watch her as she moved carefully through the doorway toward the metal detector. She walked more slowly than everyone else, but she held her head high with an undeniable grace and dignity. She reminded me of older women I’d been around all my life—women whose lives were hard but who remained kind and dedicated themselves to building and sustaining their communities. Mrs. Williams glanced at the available rows to see where she would sit, and then turned to walk through the metal detector—and that’s when she saw the dog.

I watched all her composure fall away, replaced by a look of absolute fear. Her shoulders dropped, her body sagged, and she seemed paralyzed. For over a minute she stood there, frozen, and then her body began to tremble and then shake noticeably. I heard her groan. Tears were running down her face and she began to shake her head sadly. I kept watching until she turned around and quickly walked out of the courtroom.

I felt my own mood shift. I didn’t know exactly what had happened to Mrs. Williams, but I knew that here in Alabama, police dogs and black folks looking for justice had never mixed well.

I was trying to shake off the dark feeling that the morning’s events had conjured when the officers brought Walter into the courtroom. Because there was no jury, the judge had not permitted me to give him street clothes to wear, so Walter was wearing his prison uniform. They allowed him to be in the courtroom without handcuffs but had insisted on keeping his ankles shackled. Michael and I conferred briefly about the order of witnesses as the rest of McMillian’s family and supporters slowly filed through the metal detector, past the dog, and into the courtroom.

Despite the State’s early-morning maneuvers and the bad omen of the dog and Mrs. Williams, we had another good day in court. Evidence from the state mental health workers who had dealt with Myers after he initially refused to testify in the first trial and was sent to the Taylor Hardin Secure Medical Facility for evaluation confirmed Myers’s testimony from the day before. Dr. Omar Mohabbat explained that Myers had told him then “that the police had framed him to accept the penalty for the murder case that he is accused of or ‘to testify’ that ‘the man did.’ ” Mohabbat reported that Myers “categorically denied having anything to do with the alleged crime. He claimed, ‘I don’t know the name of this girl, I don’t know the time of the alleged crime, I don’t know the date of the alleged crime, I don’t know the place of the alleged crime.’ ” Mohabbat testified that Myers had told him, “They told me to say what they wanted me to say.” Evidence from other doctors further confirmed this testimony. Dr. Norman Poythress from Taylor Hardin explained that Myers had told him that “his prior ‘confessions’ are bogus and were coerced out of him by the police through keeping him physically and psychologically isolated.” We presented evidence from Taylor Hardin staffer Dr. Kamal Nagi, who said that Myers had told him of “another murder that occurred in 1986 where a girl was shot in the Laundromat. [He] said that the ‘police and also my lawyer want me to say that I had driven these people to the Laundromat and they shot the girl, but I won’t do it.’ ” Myers also told Nagi, “They threatened me. They want me to say what they want to hear and if I don’t then they tell me, ‘You’re going to the electric chair.’ ” We had evidence from a fourth doctor to whom Myers confided that he was being pressured to give false testimony against Walter McMillian. Dr. Bernard Bryant testified that Myers told him “he did not commit the crime and that at the time he was incarcerated for the crime, he was threatened and harassed by the local police authorities into confessing he committed a crime.” We emphasized to the court throughout the day’s hearing that all of these statements were made by Myers before the initial trial. Not only did these statements make Myers’s recantation more credible but they had also been documented in medical records that had never been turned over to Walter’s trial lawyers, as the law required. The U.S. Supreme Court has long required that the prosecution disclose to the defendant anything that is exculpatory or that may be helpful to the defendant in impeaching a witness.

The supporters whom the State had brought to court and the victim’s family seemed confused by the evidence we were presenting—it complicated the simple narrative they had fully embraced about Walter’s guilt and the need for swift and certain punishment. State supporters began to leave the courtroom as the day went on, and the number of black people who were let into the room grew. By the end of that second day, I felt very hopeful. We had maintained a good pace and the cross-examinations had been shorter than I had expected. I thought we could finish our case in one more day.

I was tired but feeling pleased as I walked to my car that evening. To my surprise, I noticed Mrs. Williams sitting outside the courthouse on a bench, alone. She stood when our eyes met. I walked over, remembering how unsettled I had been to see her leave the courtroom.

“Mrs. Williams, I’m so sorry they did what they did this morning. They should not have done it, and I’m sorry if they upset you. But, so you know, things went well today. I feel like we had a good day—” “Attorney Stevenson, I feel so bad. I feel so bad,” she said and grabbed my hands.

“I should have come into that courtroom this morning. I was supposed to be in that courtroom this morning,” she said and began to weep.

“Mrs. Williams, it’s all right,” I said. “They shouldn’t have done what they did. Please don’t worry about it.” I put my arm around her and gave her a hug.

“No, no, no, Attorney Stevenson. I was meant to be in that courtroom, I was supposed to be in that courtroom.”

“It’s okay, Mrs. Williams, it’s okay.”

“No, sir, I was supposed to be there and I wanted to be there. I tried, I tried, Lord knows I tried, Mr. Stevenson. But when I saw that dog—” She shook her head and stared away with a distant look. “When I saw that dog, I thought about 1965, when we gathered at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma and tried to march for our voting rights. They beat us and put those dogs on us.” She looked back to me sadly. “I tried to move, Attorney Stevenson, I wanted to move, but I just couldn’t do it.” As she spoke it seemed like a world of sadness surrounded her. She let go of my hand and walked away. I watched her get into a car with some other people I had seen in the courtroom earlier.

I drove back to the motel in a more somber mood to start preparing for the last day of hearings.

I arrived at the court early the next morning to make sure there were no problems. As it turned out, very few people showed up to support the State. And though the metal detector and the dog were still there, no deputy stood at the door to block black people from entering the courtroom. Inside the courtroom, I noticed one of the women I’d seen leave with Mrs. Williams the night before. She came up to me and introduced herself as Mrs. Williams’s daughter. She thanked me for trying to console her mother.

“When she got home last night, she was so upset. She didn’t eat anything, she didn’t speak to anybody, she just went to her bedroom. We could hear her praying all night long. This morning she called the Reverend and begged him for another chance to be a community representative at the hearing. She was up when I got out of bed, dressed and ready to come to court. I told her she didn’t have to come, but she wouldn’t hear none of it. She’s been through a lot and, well, on the trip down here she just kept saying over and over, ‘Lord, I can’t be scared of no dog, I can’t be scared of no dog.’ ” I was apologizing again to the daughter for what the court officials had done the day before when suddenly there was a commotion at the courtroom door. We both looked up and there stood Mrs. Williams. She was once again dressed impeccably in her scarf and hat. She held her handbag tight at her side and seemed to be swaying at the entrance. I could hear her speaking to herself, repeating over and over again: “I ain’t scared of no dog, I ain’t scared of no dog.” I watched as the officers allowed her to move forward. She held her head up as she walked slowly through the metal detector, repeating over and over, “I ain’t scared of no dog.” It was impossible to look away. She made it through the detector and stared at the dog. Then, loud enough for everyone to hear, she belted out: “I ain’t scared of no dog!” She moved past the dog and walked into the courtroom. Black folks who were already inside beamed with joy as she passed them. She sat down near the front of the courtroom and turned to me with a broad smile and announced, “Attorney Stevenson, I’m here!” “Mrs. Williams, it’s so good to see you here. Thank you for coming.”

The courtroom filled up, and I started getting my papers together. They brought Walter into the courtroom, the signal that the hearing was about to begin. That’s when I heard Mrs. Williams call my name.

“No, Attorney Stevenson, you didn’t hear me. I said I’m here.” She spoke very loudly, and I was a little confused and embarrassed. I turned around and smiled at her.

“No, Mrs. Williams, I did hear you, and I’m so glad you’re here.” When I looked at her, though, it was as if she was in her own world.

The courtroom was packed, and the bailiff brought the court to order as the judge walked in. Everyone rose, as is the custom. When the judge took the bench and sat down, everyone else in the courtroom sat down as well. There was an unusually long pause as we all waited for the judge to say something. I noticed people staring at something behind me, and that’s when I turned around and saw that Mrs. Williams was still standing. The courtroom got very quiet. All eyes were on her. I tried to gesture to her that she should sit, but then she leaned her head back and shouted, “I’m here!” People chuckled nervously as she took her seat, but when she looked at me, I saw tears in her eyes.

In that moment, I felt something peculiar, a deep sense of recognition. I smiled now, because I knew she was saying to the room, “I may be old, I may be poor, I may be black, but I’m here. I’m here because I’ve got this vision of justice that compels me to be a witness. I’m here because I’m supposed to be here. I’m here because you can’t keep me away.” I smiled at Mrs. Williams while she sat proudly. For the first time since I started working on the case, everything we were struggling to achieve finally seemed to make sense. It took me a minute to realize that the judge was calling my name, impatiently asking me to begin.

The last day of hearings went well. There were a half-dozen people who had been jailed or imprisoned with Ralph Myers whom Ralph had told he was being pressured to give false testimony against Walter McMillian. We found most of them and had them testify. They were consistent in what they related. Isaac Dailey, who had been falsely accused by Myers of committing the Pittman murder, explained how Myers had falsely implicated Walter in the Pittman crime. Myers had confided to Dailey after he was arrested that he and Karen had discussed pinning the Pittman murder on Walter. “He related to us that he and Karen did the killing and, ah, plotted together to put it off on Johnny D.” Another inmate who wrote letters for Myers at the Monroe County Jail explained that Myers didn’t know McMillian, had no knowledge of the Morrison murder, and was being pressured by police to testify falsely against McMillian.

We saved the most powerful evidence for the end. The tapes that Tate, Benson, and Ikner had made when they interrogated Myers were pretty dramatic. The multiple recorded statements Myers gave to the police featured Myers repeatedly telling the police that he didn’t know anything about the Morrison murder or Walter McMillian. They included the officers’ threats against Myers and Myers’s resistance to framing an innocent man for murder. Not only did the tapes confirm Myers’s recantation and contradict his trial testimony, they exposed the lie that Pearson had told the court, the jury, and McMillian’s trial counsel—that there were only two statements provided by Myers. In fact, Myers gave at least six additional statements to the police that were largely consistent with his testimony at the Rule 32 hearing that he had no information about Walter McMillian committing the Ronda Morrison murder. All of these recorded statements were typed, exculpatory, and favorable to Walter McMillian, and none of them had been disclosed to McMillian’s attorneys, as was required.

I called on McMillian’s trial lawyers, Bruce Boynton and J. L. Chestnut, to testify about how much more they could have done to win an acquittal if the State had turned over the evidence it had suppressed. We finished the presentation of our evidence and, to our surprise, the State put on no rebuttal case. I didn’t know what they could have presented to rebut our evidence, but I’d assumed they would present something. The judge seemed surprised, too. He paused and then said he wanted the parties to submit written briefs arguing what ruling he should make. We had hoped for this, and I was relieved that the court would give us time to explain the significance of all the evidence in writing and assist him in preparing his order, an order I hoped would set Walter free. At the end of three days of intense litigation, the judge adjourned the proceedings in the late afternoon.

Michael and I had been in a rush the final morning of the hearing and hadn’t checked out of our hotel before leaving for the courthouse. We said our farewells to the family in the courtroom and went back to the hotel, feeling exhausted but satisfied.

Bay Minette, where the hearing took place, is about thirty minutes from the beautiful beaches on the Gulf of Mexico. We had started a tradition of bringing our staff down to the beach each September, and we’d all fallen in love with the clear warm waters of the Gulf. The white sand and pleasantly underdeveloped beachfront were spectacular and soothing. The view was slightly spoiled by the massive offshore oil rigs you could see in the distance, but if you could make yourself forget about them, you’d think you were in paradise. Dolphins loved this part of the Gulf and could be spotted in the early mornings, playfully making their way through the water. I’d often thought we should move our office to right there on the beach.

It was Michael’s idea to hit the beach before heading back to Montgomery. I wasn’t sure it was a good idea, but the day was warm and the coast was so close, I couldn’t resist. We jumped in the car, trailing the last hours of sunlight to the beautiful shores near Fort Morgan, Alabama. As soon as we got there, Michael changed from his suit to swim trunks and went sprinting into the ocean. I was too tired to race into the sea, so I put on some shorts and sat down at the water’s edge. It would soon be dusk, but the heat persisted. My head was full of everything that had transpired in court: I was replaying what witnesses had said and worrying about whether things had gone exactly right. I was trawling through every detail in my mind, every possible misstep, until I caught myself. It was over; there was no point in making myself crazy by overthinking it now. I decided to dive into the ocean and, for a moment at least, forget it all.

Recently, stranded at the airport with nothing else to read, I had read an article about shark attacks. As I approached the waves at Fort Morgan, now lit by the sunset, I remembered that sharks feed at dusk and at dawn. I watched Michael swimming far off shore, and as fun as it looked, I knew I’d be the more vulnerable target if a shark showed up. Michael swam like a fish while I barely stayed afloat.

Michael waved at me and shouted: “B-man, come on out!” I cautiously ventured into the water far enough to explain my concerns about sharks to him. He laughed at me. The water felt warm and wonderful, comforting in a way I hadn’t expected. A school of fish zipped by my legs, and I stared at them in wonder until I realized that they might be fleeing some larger predator. I carefully made my way back to the shore.

I sat on the sandy shore and watched the brilliant white pelicans gliding effortlessly over the still waters in search of food. Small fiddler crabs scurried around me, too fearful to get close but curious enough to linger nearby. I thought about Walter making his way back to Holman, shackled in the back of the van again. I wanted him to be hopeful but grounded enough to manage whatever the court decided. I thought about his family and all the people who had come to court. They’d kept the faith through the five years that had passed since Walter was first arrested, and now they had cause to feel energized and encouraged. I thought about Mrs. Williams. She had come up to me after the hearings and had given me a sweet kiss on the cheek. I told her how happy I was she’d come back to court. She looked at me playfully. “Attorney Stevenson, you know I was going to be here, and you know I wasn’t going to let these people keep me out.” Her words had made me smile.

Michael got out of the water looking worried.

“What did you see?” I joked. “Shark? Eel? Poisonous jellyfish? Stingray? Piranha?”

He was out of breath. “They’ve threatened us, lied to us, there are people who have told us that some folks in the county are so unnerved by what we’re doing that they’re going to kill us. What do you think they’re going to do now that they know how much evidence we have to prove Walter’s innocence?” I had given this some thought, too. Our opponents had done everything they could to frame Walter—in order to kill him. They’d lied to us and subverted the judicial process. More than a few people had passed on to us that they’d heard angry people in the community make threats on our lives because they believed we were trying to help a guilty murderer get off death row.

“I don’t know,” I told Michael, “but we have to press on, man, we have to press on.”

We both sat there in silence, watching the sun fade into darkness. More fiddler crabs emerged from their holes, scurrying crazily and getting closer to where we sat. I turned to Michael in the approaching darkness.

“We should go.”