based on a true story, just mercy(2019) follows civil rights defense attorney bryan stevenson (michael b. jordan) as he recounts his experiences and details the case of a condemned death row prisoner, walter mcmillian (jamie foxx), whom he fought to free, as he becomes embroiled in a labyrinth of legal and political maneuverings and overt and In addition, one of his sons had married a white woman. "[6] Stevenson disagreed, telling the court that "it was far too easy to convict this wrongly accused man for murder and send him to death row for something he didn't do and much too hard to win his freedom after proving his innocence. Either way, its a shame that not only our officers, but our prosecutors, which I believe work closely with the police department (at least more than defense attorneys), have also been shown to be racially biased. [6][7][8] Both McMillian and the attorney he had in 1987, J. L. Chestnut, "contended that Mr. McMillian's relationships alone had made him a suspect. One of his early cases was that of Walter McMillian (Jamie Foxx), who is put on deathrow in 1987 for the murder of an eighteen year-old White girl, regardless of the evidence proving his innocence. The people of Monroeville, Alabama was shaken up with fear and anger by Morrison's murder. "[6] In a prison interview in 1993, McMillian said, "The only reason I'm here is because I had been messing around with a white lady and my son married a white lady. Meanwhile, six witnesses testified in McMillians defense, saying he was hosting a fish fry at his house during the crime. I lost my job. LitCharts Teacher Editions. McMillian had explained to Sheriff Tate shortly after his arrest that he was at the fish fry on the morning of November 1. Stevenson recounts the story that Ralph Myers gave to police. "Just Mercy," a movie about the case, opens in theaters this . industry in its place. They stopped him with guns pointing at his face, and they shoved him up against his truck. Stevenson was in his 20s and eager to take on the case, even though the unfortunately named judge discouraged him from doing so. On the other hand, maybe the jury has more fault, since surely the defense attorney would had pointed out the inconsistencies of the witnesses testimonies, meaning that it cant be trusted, but the majority of them ultimately decided to turn a blind eye too. Walter McMillian is in the back row. . [6] McMillian held two jobs and "no criminal record other than a misdemeanor charge stemming [from] a barroom fight". Supporters celebrated Mr. McMillians release. Walter McMillian lived an ordinary life alongside his wife Minnie McMillian and their three children. In 1998, he joined other survivors at a national conference on Wrongful Convictions and the Death Penalty attended by more than 1,000 lawyers, law students, professors, and criminal justice reform advocates. Today, more than 160 people who were on death row have been proved innocent and released. In the 1988 trial, under a controversial Alabama doctrine called "judicial override", the judge imposed the death penalty, although the jury had voted for a sentence of life imprisonment. About $35 was missing. Stevenson next calls to the stand Clay Kast, was being held on death row as punishment for refusing to continue his testimony against, testimony while Ikner, Tate and Benson coerce him to continue. Walter McMillian was married to Minnie McMillian for 25 years. Walter was born on October 27, 1941 and passed away on Wednesday, September 11, 2013. . 2d 1253 (Ala.Cr. We have a choice. But McMillian always proclaimed his innocence. Their central case is that of Walter McMillian (Jamie Foxx), an independent pulpwood worker and family man known to most as Johnny D. He . It also emerged that District Attorney Theodore Pearson "had concealed evidence proving his innocence": a witness had seen the victim alive after the time when prosecutors claimed that McMillian had killed her. Subsequently, McMillian settled with other officials for an undisclosed amount. In his police interview, he made up all sorts of wild stories, like how the sheriff of a nearby county murdered Pittman. memorial page for Albert Walter McMillian (13 Oct 1862-2 Oct 1948), Find a Grave Memorial ID 7915499, citing Oakland Cemetery, Saint Paul . Sheriff Tate was never removed from office; he retired in 2019. With no leads for six months, the police focused their attention on Walter McMilllian. He knew it, his family knew it, and his friends knew it. Chestnut and Bruce Boynton, later testified that the state withheld evidence that proved his innocence. According to Myers, reinstated in 1975, the majority of Alabama death row inmates have been black, although when, that the practice is occurring. I am deeply troubled by the way the criminal system treated me and the difficulty I had in proving my innocence, he told the committee. For many death row inmates, it takes years to get the kind of legal representation and investigation necessary to prove your innocence., Learn more about Walter McMillian by reading "Just Mercy". McMillian and his wife, Minnie, met when when they were teenagers and married after she became pregnant in 1962. Walter had 3 siblings: Isabelle Page (born Mcmillan) and 2 other siblings. And he had an alibi: He was at a family fish fry the morning Ronda Morrison was murdered. Still, the police were desperate to wrap up the Morrison case, and they felt that this was their opportunity. McMillian was then placed in a cell on death row where he waited for a year before his trial took place. The visits from his family were the only thing getting him by in his time there. Again, great work! An uncle of the murder victim, in fact, came by and told them she was killed, witnesses said. Equal Justice InitiativeWalter McMillian spent six years on Alabamas death row for a murder he didnt commit. Find Walter Mcmillian's phone number, address, and email on Spokeo, the leading online directory for contact information. Walter Miles McMillian's Geni Profile. "[6][Notes 1][5] McMillian was represented by attorney J. L. Chestnut. Research the McMillian family Start your family tree now. He had lost his logging business and sold car parts until he became too ill to work. [7], In the fall of 1992, McMillian's case received national attention in the CBS News program 60 Minutes. It was truly heart wrenching that all of the people were apart of the crime were not criminally charged nor punished, yet the only person who was punished was the innocent man. We all share the condition of brokenness, even if our brokenness is not equivalent [] Our shared vulnerability and imperfection nurtures and sustains our capacity for compassion. This was Alabama in 1986. Select this result to view Walter McMillian's phone number, address, and more. 416 pp. It was pointed out that Monroeville, Alabama, was "best known as the home of Harper Lee, whose To Kill a Mockingbird told a painful story of race and justice in the small-town Jim Crow South. The crime took place at the Jackson Cleaners in Monroeville. "[3], After returning to his family and hometown of Monroeville, McMillian filed a civil lawsuit against state and local officials, including "the three men in charge of investigating the Morrison murder Tom Tate, the Sheriff of Monroe County; Larry Ikner, an investigator with the District Attorney's office in Monroe County; and Simon Benson, an investigator with the Alabama Bureau of Investigation",[19] for his wrongful prosecution and conviction. On the night Walter McMillian, a black woodcutter in rural Alabama, was . Stevenson, now 60, continues his social justice work in Alabama. Little did he know that the murder of Ronda Morrison would impact his life in a major way later on.2, On June 7, 1987 at around 11:00 a.m, McMillian was peacefully driving down Route 84. What happened to Walter McMillian in a small Alabama town in 1987 has long been pointed to as a classic example of a miscarriage of justice. All he could do was sit there and listen as three witnesses for the prosecution lied in their testimonies. We can embrace our humanness, which means embracing our broken natures and the compassion that remains our best hope for healing. According to NYU (where he's an Aronson Family Professor of Criminal Justice), he started representing death row inmates from the Deep South in 1985, and founded the nonprofit law organization Equal Justice Initiative in 1989. Sponsored by Ancestry. Mr. McMillian was with his family 11 miles away from the dry cleaning store where Ms. Morrison was murdered at the time of the crime. Just Mercy tells the story of EJI's clients, from Walter McMillian and Anthony Ray Hinton who were exonerated from Alabama's death row to Joe Sullivan and Ian Manuel who won release after being sentenced to die in prison for nonhomicide crimes in Florida when they were just 13 years old. "[6], Eighteen-year-old Ronda Morrison, a white dry-cleaning clerk, was murdered at Jackson Cleaners on November 1, 1986, in Monroeville, Alabama. I feel like they done put me on death row, too. Walter "Johnny D." McMillian (October 27, 1941 - September 11, 2013) was an African American pulpwood worker from Monroeville, Alabama, who was wrongfully convicted of murder and sentenced to death. He is survived by four sons and daughters-in-law, Jimmy and Brenda McMillian, Roger and Carol McMillian all of Galax, Charles and Sandra McMillian of Hillsville, Michael McMillian of Fancy Gap; three brothers, Rush. Did they ever reopen the case for the murder of Ronda Morrison, since Walter McMillians was proven to be innocent, or had the statute of limitations passed then? Research genealogy for Walter Mcmillian of Florida, as well as other members of the Mcmillian family, on Ancestry. For the first time in six years, Walter McMillian was a free man. EJI presented this dramatic new evidence but it took six years of hearings and appeals before the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals finally ruled that Mr. McMillians conviction was unconstitutional. It was too easy for one person to come into court and frame a man for a murder he didnt commit. An effort to hold the sheriff accountable went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, but the Court ruled that Sheriff Tate was protected from liability based on immunity laws. The trial began on August 15, 1988 and lasted only a day and a half. The real-life Walter McMillian (left) and lawyer Bryan Stevenson. A very public divorce between this woman and her husband pulled Mr. McMillian into the limelight and he soon went from someone having an interracial affair to someone thought to be capable of murder. When Walter McMillian was a 12-year-old black boy in Monroe County, Alabama where Harper Lee set To Kill a Mockingbird a bullet-riddled black man was found hanging from a tree in nearby Vredenburgh. "[9][Notes 6][3][12] In pursuing those claims, the attorneys obtained the original recording of Myers' confession. Walter McMillian, who was born on October 27, 1941, lived in a black settlement near Monroeville where he "grew up picking cotton. List of wrongful convictions in the United States, "Death of justice in Alabama: Brian Baldwin was condemned to the electric chair by a racist travesty", "Double Jeopardy: In Alabama, a judge can override a jury that spares a murderer from the death penalty", "Alabama Releases Man Held On Death Row for Six Years", Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption, "An Alabama Sheriff, a Mystery Check and a Blogger Who Cried Foul", "Alabama frees black man on death row for 6 years - Walter McMillan", "One Lawyer's Fight For Young Blacks And 'Just Mercy', Jamie Foxx in Talks to Join Michael B. Jordan in Legal Drama 'Just Mercy', Equal Justice Initiative - Walter McMillian, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Walter_McMillian&oldid=1134436044, Overturned convictions in the United States, Short description is different from Wikidata, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 18 January 2023, at 17:56. McMillian had a business of his own and was an upstanding member of his community. McMillian lost an appeal in 1991 and his conviction and death sentence were affirmed. In front of the camera, In his funeral speech, Stevenson explains that , Would not have made it through AP Literature without the printable PDFs. McMillian was accused of murdering an 18-year-old girl and was put on death row. Before Walter McMillian was released from death row. . Weeks later, at around 10:45 a.m. on Nov. 1, 1986, 18-year-old Ronda Morrison a white college student who was beloved by the local community was found dead at a Monroeville dry cleaners, where she worked part-time. As a result, Alabama passed its 2001 compensation statute. Walter Lester McMillian, 72, of Fancy Gap, died May 26, 2002, in Beverly Health Care-Blue Ridge. Walter McMillians post-conviction ordeal is featured in the film. Appellant told him that "I had a lovely family to be destroyed if I . 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