Just Mercy, Chapters 3 & 4

On what charge was Walter McMillian arrested?

• The murder of Ronda Morrison

• Having had interracial relations with Karen Kelly

• Sodomy -- Myers claimed that Walter had assaulted him.

• Walter McMillian was arrested with no charges against him.

• The murder of Vickie Pittman.

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On page 49, Stevenson gives Myers’s account of his and McMillian’s supposed involvement in the murder of Ronda Morrison. Why was the story about McMillian making Myers drive him to murder Ronda Morrison suspicious?

• McMillian didn’t own a vehicle.

• Myers claims McMillian made him drive because he had an injured arm, yet McMillian supposedly drove the truck to where he picked up Myers.

• Myers didn’t know how to drive.

• It was well known that McMillian wouldn’t let anyone else drive his own vehicle.

• McMillian knew Myers and didn’t trust him. It doesn’t make sense that he would have involved Myers in a crime.

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Why was McMillian and Myers’s initial placement on death row (while they were waiting for the trial) especially shocking?

• No one believed that either of them had actually killed anyone.

• It is illegal to hold pretrial detainees in a way that constitutes punishment because they have not been convicted of a crime yet.

• It was unclear how the prosecutors were able to find them spots on death row because death row is so overcrowded.

• Both McMillian and Myers were fully cooperating with the police investigation.

• McMillian and Myers weren’t going to be tried for a crime that was eligible for a death row sentence.

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What rhetorical effect does the inclusion of the account of the execution of John Evans have on the reader?

• The details of the execution are meant to make the uninformed reader familiar with standard procedures in executions.

• Stevenson’s account of the execution of a clearly innocent man causes the reader to wonder how many innocent people have been executed in this way.

• c. Stevenson uses the execution to encourage the reader to follow the law in order to avoid Evans’ fate.

• The description of the botched, fourteen-minute electric chair execution is meant to shock readers at the horror and inhumanity of this method of execution.

• The inclusion allows the reader to understand the state of mind of a condemned man facing execution. This is necessary for the reader to empathize with McMillian and his story.

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How does jury selection impact the trials of black defendants?

• It is impossible to create a jury in the South that is not mostly white because most counties are majority white. For the same reason, these majority white juries rarely sit for black defendants.

• It is difficult to create juries that weren’t mostly white because minorities notoriously don’t show up for jury duty. The racial make-up of these juries doesn’t seem to impact the trials of black defendants, as the racist jurors, even the white ones, are sent home.

• Juries generally mirror the racial make-up of the counties the trials are housed in, providing a mostly fair trial for the defendant regardless of race.

• Juries are generally mostly black because the white people in the south believe that they are too good for jury service. Ironically, majority black juries are even harder on black defendants than majority white juries are.

• Juries are generally mostly white because of the techniques prosecutors use to exclude back jurors. Majority white juries make a conviction more likely for black defendants.

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In Walter’s pretrial hearing in 1987, his attorneys Chestnut and Boynton asked for the trial to be held in another county. Although such requests are not often granted, it was this time. What is significant about where the trial was moved to, and why can we infer the judge allowed it?

• Baldwin County was far enough away from Monroe County to escape the press coverage. The judge knew that there was heightened press awareness of this case and wanted to make sure everyone knew he was a fair judge.

• Baldwin County was a wealthy community that bribed the judge to move it there. They thought the press and spectators of the trial would boost their economy even more.

• Baldwin County was a black majority county. The judge was concerned that the prosecutors would attempt to load the jury with white jurors and wanted to preempt that possibility.

• Baldwin County was the only county outside of Monroe County that was able to accept a new trial. The judge wanted the verdict to stay, and Chestnut and Boynton had threatened a mistrial if the trial wasn’t moved.

• Baldwin County was an affluent community with a significantly lower black population than the other counties. This racial make-up would make it easier to justify excluding black jurors

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McMillian is convicted and sent back to death row. What is the most likely reason that the writer Bryan Stevenson uses the imagery of the too-tight handcuffs and shackles on this trip?

• It reminds the reader of how overly sensitive McMillian is to his current condition.

• It shows the callousness of the men transporting him and of the trial overall in which he was falsely convicted.

• t’s a metaphor for the constricting guilt that McMillian feels for his involvement in Rhonda Morrison’s murder.

• Stevenson’s reaction to the handcuffs foreshadows his ability towards the end of the book to overcome the injustice of his current situation.

• It shows the kindness of the men transporting him, as they were willing to loosen his handcuffs when he complained about the pressure.

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Eva Ansley and Stevenson encounter all of the following obstacles when they opened their nonprofit law center serving Alabama death row inmates EXCEPT:

• They lose the funding from the state that they had expected.

• The community protests and doesn’t want them to be there.

• They lose the office space the University of Alabama had promised them.

• They have difficulty recruiting lawyers who are willing to do this type of work for so little pay.

• They are overwhelmed with the number of inmates asking for their help

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Stevenson and his nonprofit take on the case of Michael Lindsey, whose execution date was impending. What is odd about the sentencing in this case, which Stevenson uses to try to get Lindsey a stay of execution?

• There was evidence that the jury was tampered with, but even knowing this, the judge had refused to declare a mistrial.

• The jury had declared Lindsey innocent, but the judge overrode this and declared him guilty, thereby sentencing him to death.

• Lindsey was the first person sentenced to death in Alabama in over a decade.

• Lindsey was mentally handicapped, and the Supreme Court had already ruled that it was a constitutional violation to execute the mentally handicapped.

• The jury had actually sentenced him to life in prison, but the judge overrode this and sentenced him to death instead.

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How is the Supreme Court case Atkins vs. Virginia relevant to Stevenson’s legal advocacy?

• The case prohibits executing people with intellectual disabilities. Many of the inmates Stevenson works with have such disabilities.

• The case upholds the constitutionality of the death penalty, which of course connects to all the cases that Stevenson is working with in this chapter.

• The case removes much of the red tape that had slowed down executions on death penalty cases in the past.

• The case specifies that the threshold for death penalty cases should be higher than in a normal sentencing. Stevenson now spends his time working to get the new threshold applied to his cases.

• The case allows courts to execute people with intellectual disabilities. Many of the disabled inmates Stevenson works with now have execution dates set.

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