Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson

Author:Bryan Stevenson
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780812994537
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Published: 2014-10-21T07:00:00+00:00

I arrived at the courthouse early the next morning to visit Walter in his basement cell before the proceedings began. When I headed upstairs, I was confused to see a throng of black folks sitting outside the courtroom in the courthouse lobby. It was just about time for the proceedings to begin. I went up to Armelia, who was sitting with the others outside the courtroom, and she looked at me with concern.

“What’s wrong?” I asked. “Why aren’t y’all inside the courtroom?”

I looked around the lobby. If there had been a huge crowd yesterday, today’s hearing had brought more people, including several clergy members and older people of color I’d never seen before.

“They won’t let us in, Mr. Stevenson.”

“What do you mean they won’t let you in?”

“We tried to go in earlier, and they told us we couldn’t come in.”

A young man in a deputy sheriff’s uniform was standing in front of the entrance to the courtroom. I walked over to him and he put his arm up to stop me.

“I want to go into the courtroom,” I said firmly.

“You can’t come in.”

“What do you mean I can’t come in? There is a hearing scheduled and I want to go inside.”

“I’m sorry, sir, you can’t come into the courtroom.”

“Why not?” I asked.

He stood there silently. Finally, I added, “I’m the defense attorney. I think I have to be able to go inside the courtroom.”

He looked at me closely and was clearly perplexed. “Um, I don’t know. I’ll have to go and check.” He disappeared inside the courtroom. He came back a few moments later and grinned at me tentatively. “Um, you can come in.”

I pushed by the deputy, opened the door, and saw that the entire courtroom had been altered. Inside the courtroom door they had placed a large metal detector, on the other side of which was an enormous German shepherd held back by a police officer. The courtroom was already half filled. The benches that had been filled by Walter’s supporters the previous day were now mostly occupied by older white people. Clearly the people here were supporting the Morrisons and the prosecution. Chapman and Valeska were already sitting at the prosecutor’s table, acting as if nothing was going on. I was livid.

I walked over to Chapman, “Who told the deputies not to let the folks outside come into the courtroom?” I asked. They looked at me as if they didn’t know what I was talking about. “I’m going to speak to the judge about this.”

I spun on my heel and went directly to the judge’s chambers, and the prosecutors followed me. When I explained to Judge Norton that McMillian’s family and supporters had been told that they couldn’t come into the courtroom, even though the State’s supporters had been let in, the judge rolled his eyes and looked annoyed.

“Mr. Stevenson, your people will just have to get here earlier,” he said dismissively.

“Judge, the problem isn’t that they weren’t here early. The problem is they were told they couldn’t come into the courtroom.

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