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. Just one grandparent can lead you to many discoveries. "[5] This practice, called judicial override, allows "elected trial judges to override jury verdicts of life and impose death sentences." With his conviction overturned, Walter McMillian was released from death row in 1993. harrowing last words of 23 executed criminals. Financial TimesWalter McMillian (left) and Bryan Stevenson after McMillians conviction was overturned in 1993. Chestnut and Bruce Boynton, later testified that the state withheld evidence that proved his innocence. I think this article not only spreads awareness on systematic racism and wrongful convictions, but it also starts a conversation on the inhumane conditions of prisons. They convicted McMillian of first-degree murder. McMillian's case served as a catalyst for Alabama's compensation statute, which was passed in 2001. [7][9] Myers pleaded guilty as a conspirator in the murder and received a 30-year prison term.[7]. Myers was picked up for a different murder, that of a poor white woman named Vickie Pittman. During the closing argument of the trial, the state emphasized the victim's beauty and her life, as well as the brutality of her murder. How famous was Albert Walter McMillian? The fact that this man was innocent, and everyone knew, he was still guilty. [19] Subsequently, McMillian settled out of court with other officials for an undisclosed amount. When Minnie became pregnant in 1962, they were married. Research genealogy for Walter Mcmillian of Florida, as well as other members of the Mcmillian family, on Ancestry. McMillian lost an appeal in 1991 and his conviction and death sentence were affirmed. The nearly all-white jury convicted Mr. McMillian of capital murder and sentenced him to life imprisonment without parole. Although there are still injustices for colored people in todays society, it Definitely has gotten better and Im glad that were working towards that. Equal Justice InitiativeWalter McMillian spent six years on Alabamas death row for a murder he didnt commit. [3] A journalist described him as a "black pulpwood worker". As Bryan Stevenson, McMillians future lawyer, wrote in his memoir Just Mercy, Tree work is notoriously demanding and dangerous. We can embrace our humanness, which means embracing our broken natures and the compassion that remains our best hope for healing. "[6], Eighteen-year-old Ronda Morrison, a white dry-cleaning clerk, was murdered at Jackson Cleaners on November 1, 1986, in Monroeville, Alabama. Plus, McMillian didnt fit the profile of a murderer: He had no prior felony convictions, just one misdemeanor for getting dragged into a bar fight years earlier. Testimony of the trial lasted a day and a half. Born to a poor black family outside of Monroeville, Alabama, Walter became a successful small businessman as an adult. We collect and match historical records that Ancestry users have contributed to their family trees to create each person's profile. The reveal of the witness being pressured to testify proves that the laws that help prevent these things dont always work. 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. This article is informative and well written! When she was five years old, her mother died of consumption, weakened from the grueling delivery of Mary's younger sister and heartbroken by the baby's untimely death. Aside from having a misdemeanor charge from a barroom fight, he had a clean record and no other charges to his name. I appreciate that the author provided just enough detail so the reader could form an emotional connection to this story. At least 48 people have been released from prison after serving time on death row since 1930 with significant evidence of their innocence. DuBois's short story "Of the Coming of John", which he discusses on page 100-101. Mr. McMillian was sent back to his cell on death row, where he ultimately spent six years. In Alabama, Monroeville, 1986, Walter McMillian (Jamie Foxx), a member of Monroevile's Black community and owner of a tree felling company, was arrested for the murder of 18-year-old girl Ronda Morrison at the local cleaners. Things would be fine, he thought, as long as everything was kept secret. We welcome new information from any source about exonerations already on our list and about cases not in the Registry that might be exonerations. McMillian was completely clueless as to why this was happening to him. He came to attention because he had an affair with a married white woman. 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 McMillian family: Walter McMillian had a family of believers. EP.32 The case of Walter McMillian-New way of looking at the death penalty Walter "Johnny D." McMillian (October 27, 1941 - September 11, 2013)[1] was an African-American pulpwood worker from Monroeville, Alabama, who was wrongly convicted of murder and sentenced to death. This story was very sad to read, and unfortunately a clear reality in todays times with our criminal justice system in the United States. The people of Monroeville, Alabama was shaken up with fear and anger by Morrison's murder. . us about an exoneration that we may have missed, Correct an error or add information about an exoneration When he asked for an explanation, they loudly and angrily said that he was being charged with sodomy for assaulting a man. Walters case complicated the debate in very graphic ways. 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. In addition, the two witnesses who had testified that they had seen McMillians truck retracted their testimony, and admitted that they lied at trial. Skip Ancestry main menu Main . [7][Notes 7], McMillian later developed dementia, believed to have been brought on by the trauma of imprisonment. 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. The man was Russell Charley. 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. [5][14], The two witnesses who had testified that they had seen McMillian's truck retracted their testimony, and admitted that they lied at trial, committing perjury. All NRE reports represent a moment in time. McMillian's case served as a catalyst for Alabama's compensation statute, which was passed in 2001. [3] He died on September 11, 2013. In his police interview, he made up all sorts of wild stories, like how the sheriff of a nearby county murdered Pittman. At the trial, Hooks kept his testimony and claimed to have seen the truck near the Jackson Cleaners at the time of Ronda Morrisons murder.3, McMillian was innocent. (including. Stevenson finishes by calling on, of the other witness testimonies. 2. Walter McMillan spent six years on death row for a crime he didn't commit, but even after the Alabama resident was exonerated, he remained tormented by his years behind bars. The petition also alleged that the state of Alabama "had violated his constitutional rights by withholding exculpatory and impeachment information". She supports and cares for her five children during Walter's incarceration. [9][Notes 5], In 1992 the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals in McMillian v. State 594 So. [10][11], The 2019 film Just Mercy dramatizes McMillian's case, and stars Jamie Foxx as McMillian and Michael B. Jordan as Bryan Stevenson, with direction by Destin Daniel Cretton, based on Stevenson's 2014 book Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption.[20]. They had 2 children: Isabella Mae McMillan and one other child. "My students can't get enough of your charts and their results have gone through the roof." McMillian already had a target on his back from his affair with Karen Kelly, and the police had that target in their sights. 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. Sentimentality about Lees story grew even as the harder truths of the book took no roots. McMillian and his wife, Minnie, met when when they were teenagers and married after she became pregnant in 1962. Several months later, police arrested 30-year-old Ralph Myers, a career criminal, on suspicion of murdering a woman in nearby Escambia County. You may be trying to access this site from a secured browser on the server. "[Notes 3][4], On September 19, 1988, Judge Robert E. Lee Key, Jr., overruled the jury's recommendation of a life sentence and imposed the death penalty. Alabama Releases Man Held on Death Row for Six Years, Walter McMillian's Statement to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, Wrongfully Convicted Man Recalls Death Row, 122 Commerce Street Montgomery, AL 36104 Walter McMillian was married to Minnie McMillian for 25 years. Since then, the EJI has made some landmark advances in leveling . I am at least happy to find out that Mr. McMillians made it out of deaths hand due to his lawyer, however this is one of many cases and not all of them end in a happy way. There was a new county sheriff, and people were whispering about his incompetence. After listening to it, they flipped the tape over and discovered a recorded conversation in which Myers complained bitterly that he was being forced to implicate McMillian, whom he did not know, for a crime neither of them had any role in. Darnell explains that after, at the Monroe County Courthouse, Stevensons hopes fade as Chapman expresses his unquestioning belief in, is tell the truth. Now that the retrial has been denied, Stevensons next step in, at the Tutwiler Womens Prison for the Pittman murder. While McMillian did receive an undisclosed amount of compensation, it was less than he had hoped for. Suddenly, State Troopers, city cars, sheriffs, and deputies surrounded his car. The case had generated an unusual amount of media coverage. The fact that the testimonial of the witnesses that saw McMillian near the cleaners the morning of the murder didnt even add up, and nobody seemed to care is upsetting. Walter McMillian passed away on September 11, 2013.7. They threatened me for six years. You know theyll try to kill you if you actually get to the bottom of everything. Walter McMillian was among the first exonerees from death row in the modern era. I have plenty of friends who are sentenced 10 or 20 years in jail and they feel doomed as soon as the judge slams the gavel. According to the Equal Justice Initiative of Montgomery, Alabama, "No capital sentencing procedure in the United States has come under more criticism as unreliable, unpredictable, and arbitrary" than the judge override. Key had retired by 1993, During the 1993 appeal it was revealed that, "Two mechanics, Willie Nettles and Clay Kast, testified that they had modified the appellant's truck to convert it to a low-rider and that they did not do this work until several months after the commission of the crime at Jackson Cleaners. [5] In 1986 he had been married to Minnie McMillian for 25 years and they had nine children. There were dozens of Black people who could testify to his innocence but they were ignored. McMillian clearly recalled the moment the news got to them. 1 Colonization and Settlement (1500-1763), 2 Revolution and Early Republic (1754-1801), 4 Civil War and Reconstruction (1850-1877), 5 Emergence of Modern America (1877-1929), 4 Late Middle Ages-Renaissance-Reformation Europe (1300-1648), 3 Post-Classical History (600 CE-1492 CE), HS 1302 United States History since 1877, SP 3392 Language Variation and Dialectology of Spanish, Michael B. Ross, The Execution of Innocence,, College of Arts, Humanities, & Social Sciences. Walter married Maggie Ella McMillan (born Miller) on month day 1908, at age 24 at marriage place. As Mr. Stevenson and the staff of EJI investigated the case, they discovered a ton of evidence that proved Mr. McMillian was innocent. McMillian was looking at two options for his sentence: death by electrocution, or life in prison. Still, the police were desperate to wrap up the Morrison case, and they felt that this was their opportunity. Stevenson came across McMillians case and met with him and began working on appealing his case. Walter was an unlikely suspect in Ronda's murder. [5], Six years after the original trial, in an unrelated case, the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals found that the prosecutor, District Attorney Theodore Pearson, and Judge Key "had practiced 'intentional racial discrimination' in jury selection. Find Walter Mcmillian's phone number, address, and email on Spokeo, the leading online directory for contact information. Within weeks, McMillian was transferred to a maximum-security state prison in Atmore, Alabama. Walter McMillian worked hard providing for his wife and their three children. It was the last state in the U.S. to overturn laws banning interracial marriage but that wouldnt happen for another 14 years. Our, "Sooo much more helpful thanSparkNotes. Walter had 3 siblings: Isabelle Page (born Mcmillan) and 2 other siblings. This left McMillian even more clueless as they didnt provide him with an explanation for how or why he was being charged with such a crime. I ought to take you off and hang you like we done that nigger in Mobile. The best example of racial bias and prejudice is Walter McMillian's case because it shows both extreme racial biases and extreme racial prejudices against McMillian because of the color of his skin. The trauma Mr. McMillian experienced led to early-onset dementia. The National Registry of Exonerations is a project of the Newkirk Center for Science & Society at University of California Irvine, the University of Michigan Law School and Michigan State University College of Law. Walter was implicated in the murder of Ronda Morrison, which led to a rather unfair trial against him. Pearson had failed to disclose exculpatory evidence to McMillian's attorneys, including records from the Taylor Hardin Secure Medical Facility and Myers' June 3 and August 27 statements. In front of the camera, In his funeral speech, Stevenson explains that , Would not have made it through AP Literature without the printable PDFs. In the 1988 trial, under a controversial Alabama doctrine called "judicial override", the judge imposed the death . Birthplace: GA, United States. "[6], The story was featured in a 1995 book entitled Circumstantial Evidence: Death, Life, and Justice in a Southern Town by former Washington Post journalist Pete Earley. He met Karen Kelly, who was 25 and unhappily married, at the Waffle House where he ate breakfast. It is a miracle that Mr. Stevenson reviewed Mr. McMillans case, without his review, an innocent man would been put to death due to racial discrimination. Appellant told him that "I had a lovely family to be destroyed if I . The following week, on March 2, Circuit Court Judge Pamela W. Baschab ruled on the motion, dismissing all charges against McMillian. And thats how his affair with a white woman 18 years his junior became the talk of the town. After, Stevenson agrees to work with the CBS program 60 Minutes to produce a story about, an innocent man in prison until the real murderer is found. Explore genealogy for Walter McMillian born 1941 Monroe County, Alabama, United States died 2013 including ancestors + more in the free family tree community. 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. 53 records for Walter Mcmillian. Select this result to view Walter McMillian's phone number, address, and more. He suffered mentally and physically to the point where he developed early on-set dementia. Equal Justice InitiativeWalter McMillian with his family after his release from prison. 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. They knew their statements against a white mans perjured testimony didnt stand a chance.4, McMillians trial lasted two days. [15], Since then, the frequency of the judge override in Alabama has come under scrutiny: "Nearly seventy Alabama judges have single-handedly ordered an inmate's execution, and collectively they have done so more than a hundred times. [7], In the fall of 1992, McMillian's case received national attention in the CBS News program 60 Minutes. Aside from having a misdemeanor charge from a barroom fight, he had a clean record and no other charges to his name. The author named chapter five after W.E.B. The McMillian family: Walter McMillian had a family of believers. EJI filed civil rights lawsuits against state and local officials for incarcerating Mr. McMillian on death row before his trial in violation of his rights. "Just Mercy," a movie about the case, opens in theaters this . After six months with no leads or suspects, their attention focused on Walter McMillian. After Mr. McMillians release in 1993, he worked hard to educate people about the death penalty, sharing his experiences with students, community groups, and elected officials across the country. "[9] Myers confessed that "he knew nothing about the crime, that he was not present when the crime was committed, that he had been told what to say by certain law enforcement officers, and that he had testified falsely against McMillian because of pressure from the officers. A 60 Minutes segment and other national press coverage about his case led to other exonerations. Skip Ancestry main menu Main Menu. I lost my reputation. In Alabama, elected trial judges were authorized to override a jurys life verdict and impose the death penalty. They had three children and lived in a dilapidated house in Repton, about 10 miles south of Monroeville. Bryan Stevenson and EJI received death threats. We have all hurt someone and have been hurt. Bryan, who was the attorney on Walter's case, was young and just starting his career. Enter a grandparent's name. Walter McMillian photographed outside of his home surrounded by family and friends. When he visited McMillian in prison,[10][16][Notes 4][17] McMillian maintained his innocence. The police wouldnt buy it, and so Myers said he had information on the Morrison case. 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. Walters case complicated the debate in very graphic ways in Repton, about 10 south! 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