Just Mercy: Chapter 3 Summary & Analysis

Returning to the events leading up to Walter’s conviction, Stevenson describes the investigators’ next move after Myers failed to identify Walter. Stevenson remarks that public pressure was continuing to build on Sheriff Tate, District Attorney Investigator Larry Ikner, and ABI Investigator Simon Benson. Following an officer’s prompting, Myers claimed that Walter had raped him. The police arrested and jailed Walter in June of 1987 on sodomy charges (under anti-homosexuality laws) and questioned him about the murder of Ronda Morrison. In response to Walter’s bewilderment, Tate repeatedly called him a “nigger” and threatened to “hang you like we done that nigger in Mobile.” This is a reference to the murder by the KKK of a black man in Mobile that occurred after a local jury declared a mistrial in the case of another black man accused of shooting a white policeman.

Stevenson recounts the story that Ralph Myers gave to police. According to Myers, Walter kidnapped him at a gas station at gunpoint. Walter forced Myers to drive his truck to the Monroe Cleaners because Walter’s arm hurt. At the cleaners, Walter went in and told Myers to wait. Myers went to buy cigarettes and then came back. Walter returned, stating he had killed Ronda Morrison. He dropped Myers back off at the gas station, threatening to kill him if he snitched. With Walter still in jail on sodomy charges and facing public disgust, investigators offered an early release to Bill Hooks, a jailed black man known as a “jailhouse snitch” if he could corroborate Myer’s story by placing Walter’s truck at the cleaners. He accepted and testified that he had seen the truck at the cleaners on the day Ronda was murdered.

The police indict Walter for the murder of Ronda Morrison to the “joy and relief” of the white community. Sheriff Tate still hasn’t investigated Walter’s background or whereabouts at the time of Ronda’s murder. Black residents are outraged, and several relatives, neighbors and others report that on the day of the murder they saw Walter at his home where he and his family were putting on a fish fry to raise money for the church where his sister is minister. Among Walter’s alibis are Ronda’s uncle, Ernest Welch, a furniture salesman, and a policeman who wrote in his log that he’d purchased lunch from Walter. The police decide to continue their indictment anyway. Myers realizes the gravity of what he has done and tries to rescind his testimony. In response, Tate has Myers and Walter held on death row. Stevenson writes that holding “pretrial detainees” on death row is illegal.

Stevenson describes Alabama’s death row at Holman Prison. Since the death penalty was reinstated in 1975, the majority of Alabama death row inmates have been black, although when Walter arrived 40% were white. Inmates are held for 23 hours a day in a minimal 5-by-8 cell with a metal door. Nearby is the electric chair, which was painted yellow by inmates in the 1930s and called the “Yellow Mama.” The details of recent executions occupy the conversations of death row inmates. Stevenson includes notes from Russ Canan, an SPDC lawyer whose client, John Evans, had just been executed at Holman. Canan describes Evans’ painful death: he was electrocuted three times before the old, malfunctioning machine finally killed him.

Walter believes that soon investigators will realize their mistake and let him go. As time passes, however, he becomes increasingly terrified, anxious, and distressed by his confinement. His family raises money and refinances their possessions to pay for two Selma civil rights attorneys, J.L Chestnut and Bruce Boynton. Monroeville officials disapprove of Walter hiring out-of-county defense, and they consider it evidence that Walter has drug money. The new attorneys fail to get Walter out of Holman. Other death row inmates offer support to Walter and explain to him the rules about pre-trial detention. They encourage him to file his own complaint, but Walter doesn’t because he barely knows how to read and write.

In another section of Holman death row, Ralph Myers has a psychological breakdown on the night that inmate Wayne Ritter is executed. Myers is overwhelmed by sound of inmates clanging their cups against the walls in protest, as well as the stench of burning flesh, which reminds Myers of his own childhood burning incident. The next day he calls Sheriff Tate, offering to move ahead with his testimony. Tate personally moves Myers to another prison on the same day, filing no paperwork with the prison. District Attorney Ted Pearson is soon to retire, and Stevenson speculates that Pearson sees Walter’s upcoming prosecution as the chance to “leave office with a victory.”

Stevenson recounts the long history of southern courts deliberately excluding black jurors from serving, despite several federal laws that prevent racially-based exclusion. After the Supreme Court held underrepresentation of minorities on juries to be unconstitutional in the 1970’s, minority exclusion persisted through a system of using preemptory strikes in jury selection. Although the prejudiced use of preemptory strikes is illegal, it is difficult to prove that the practice is occurring. When Chestnut and Boynton filed the standard motion to have Walter’s case moved to avoid local bias, they were surprised when Ted Pearson supported their request and even more surprised when Judge Key approved it. Key moved Walter’s case to Baldwin County, the only nearby county with a majority white population. Stevenson contends that Pearson and Key had likely collaborated to send Walter’s case to Baldwin in order to secure an all-white jury. Even though Walter had heard from other inmates about the racial biases of all-white juries, he tried not to despair.

Walter’s February trial is postponed until August after the key witness, Myers, again refuses to testify. Tate transfers Myers back to death row, where his mental health issues resurface. He is sent to a state mental hospital for a month and then returned back to death row. Stevenson writes that the state hospital had almost never found any patients psychologically unfit to testify, despite this being a key part of their institutional responsibility. Stevenson writes that Myers sees no other way out of the “situation he has created,” and he agrees to testify against Walter.

At Walter’s trial, Ted Pearson uses preemptory strikes to eliminate all but one of the black jurors. Myers gives his testimony. He adds that he went into Monroeville Cleaners and saw Walter standing over Ronda’s body, and that an unnamed gray-haired man organized the murder and ordered Walter to shoot Myers, but that he had no more bullets. Bill Hooks testifies that he saw Walter’s modified “low-rider” truck at the Cleaners. Walter whispers to his lawyers that his truck wasn’t modified until months after, but they don’t pursue that detail. Walter senses that everyone is in a hurry. A white man Walter has never met, Joe Hightower, also testifies that he saw Walter’s truck. The defense calls only three witnesses from the many people present at the fish fry. Ronda’s uncle Ernest Welch, the “furniture man” testifies that the fish fry was on a different day because he wouldn’t have come by on the day his niece died. The jury pronounces Walter guilty. Walter returns to death row, hopeless and shocked that they believed Myers’ story.