Free Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson Page A

execution fast approaching, condemned prisoners were talking about the electric chair constantly when Walter arrived. For his first three weeks on Alabama’s death row, the horrific execution of John Evans was pretty much all he heard about.
    The surreal whirlwind of the preceding weeks had left Walter devastated. After living his whole life free and unrestrained by anyone or anything, he found himself confined and threatened in a way he could never have imagined. The intense rage of the arresting officers and the racist taunts and threats from uniformed police officers who did not know him were shocking. He saw in the people who arrested him and processed him at the courthouse, even in other inmates at the jail, a contempt that he’d never experienced before. He had always been well liked and gotten along with just about everybody. He genuinely believed the accusations against him had been a serious misunderstanding and that once officials talked to his family to confirm his alibi, he’d be released in a couple of days. When the days turned into weeks, Walter began to sink into deep despair. His family assured him that the police would soon let him go, but nothing happened.
    His body reacted to the shock of his situation. A lifelong smoker, Walter tried to smoke to calm his nerves, but at Holman he found the experience of smoking nauseating and quit immediately. For days hecouldn’t taste anything he ate. He couldn’t orient or calm himself. When he woke each morning, he would feel normal for a few minutes and then sink into terror upon remembering where he was. Prison officials had shaved his head and all the hair from his face. Looking in a mirror, he didn’t recognize himself.
    The county jails where Walter had been housed before his transfer were awful. But the small, hot prison cell on Holman’s death row was far worse. He was used to working outside among the trees with the scent of fresh pine on the cool breeze. Now he found himself staring at the bleak walls of death row. Fear and anguish unlike anything he’d ever experienced settled on Walter.
    Death row prisoners were constantly advising him, but he had no way of knowing whom to believe. The judge had earlier appointed an attorney to represent him, a white man Walter didn’t trust. His family raised money to hire the only black criminal lawyers in the region, J. L. Chestnut and Bruce Boynton from Selma. Chestnut was fiery and had done a lot of work in the black community to enforce civil rights. Boynton’s mother, Amelia Boynton Robinson, was a legendary activist; Boynton himself had strong civil rights credentials as well.
    Despite their collective experience, Chestnut and Boynton failed to persuade local officials to release Walter and couldn’t prevent his transfer to Holman. If anything, hiring outside lawyers seemed to provoke Monroe County officials even more. On the trip to Holman, Tate was furious that McMillian had involved outside counsel; he mocked Walter for thinking it would make any difference. Although the money to hire Chestnut and Boynton was raised by family members through church donations and by financing their meager possessions, local law enforcement interpreted it as evidence of Walter’s secret money hoard and double life—confirmation that he wasn’t the innocent black man he pretended to be.
    Walter tried to adjust to Holman, but things only got worse. With a scheduled execution approaching, people on the row were agitated and angry. Other prisoners had advised him to take action and file a federal complaint, since he couldn’t legally be held on death row.When Walter, who could barely read or write, failed to file the various pleadings, writs, motions, and lawsuits the other prisoners had advised him to file, they blamed him for his predicament.
    “Fight for yourself. Don’t trust your lawyer. They can’t put you on death row without being convicted.” Walter heard this constantly, but he couldn’t imagine how to file