Bryan Stevenson
Bryan Stevenson is the memoir's author and first-person narrator. After studying law at Harvard University, Stevenson becomes a defense lawyer for death row prisoners in Alabama. Later, Stevenson founds the Equal Justice Initiative and becomes a leading voice in criminal justice reform.
Walter McMillian
A black man accused of murdering a white woman, Walter McMillian is one of Stevenson's clients. Since Walter has a sullied reputation as an interracial adulterer, investigators are willing to overlook evidence that could prove his innocence. Stevenson is surprised and impressed by Walter's good nature and empathy despite the injustice of being wrongly held on death row. When young, Walter has a beard and is described as attractive-looking. Later in the story, after his exoneration, Walter deteriorates mentally and physically, growing thin and frail.
Sheriff Tate
Sheriff Tate, as the sheriff of Monroe Country, is instrumental in carrying out Walter's wrongful conviction. Tate's corruption is evident in the way he uses law enforcement influence to hold Walter and Ralph Myers on death row before their trials. Tate also uses witness intimidation tactics, and utters racist epithets when arresting Walter.
Ralph Myers
Ralph Myers is a drug dealer, known criminal, and compulsive liar who invents a story that implicates Walter McMillian in the murder of Ronda Morrison. Myers is the State's main witness in the trial that finds Walter guilty of Morrison's murder. After participating in group therapy in prison, Myers recants his testimony and Walter is exonerated. From a childhood injury, Myers has extensive burns over his face.
Ronda Morrison
Ronda Morrison is an eighteen-year-old white woman who is murdered in a cleaners shop where she works. As a well-liked member of her community, her unexplained murder leads to anxiety among citizens and law enforcement, precipitating the wrongful accusation and conviction of Walter McMillian. Her murder is still unexplained by the end of the memoir.
Stephen Bright
Stephen Bright is director of the Southern Prisoners Defense Committee, whose social justice work advocates for underrepresented condemned people, the majority of whom are poor and black. As a young lawyer, Stevenson meets Bright on the flight to Alabama. Bright inspires Stevenson with his charisma and dedication to the SPDC's cause.
Henry
Henry is the first death row inmate Stevenson meets as an intern for the SPDC. Henry is described as a neatly groomed young African American man wearing bright, clean prison whites. After talking to Stevenson for three hours, Henry is led back to his cell singing a hymn.
Herbert Richardson
Herbert Richardson is a death row prisoner whose execution is the first Stevenson witnesses. Herbert is composed as he says goodbye to his family before the execution, but grows anxious and frightened after his hair is shaved off in preparation for the execution.
Charlie
Charlie is one of Stevenson's clients. As a child, Charlie is sentenced to death row for shooting a violent police officer with the officer's own gun. Charlie is described as being particularly small for his age. He is uncommunicative when Stevenson visits him in prison; Stevenson later learns that Charlie is being gang-raped by adult prisoners.
Mrs. Williams
Mrs. Williams comes to the courthouse as a supporter of Walter McMillian during the hearing that exonerates him. On the second day of the hearing, Mrs. Williams is intimidated by a police dog in the courtroom. Stevenson learns that she is traumatized by an experience when she marched for her civil rights in the 1960s and police dogs were set on her. On the third day of the hearing, she walks past the dog and announces to the room that she is there.
Minnie McMillian
Minnie is Walter's wife. While her husband is on death row, Minnie works to put their daughter through college. After Walter's release, Minnie suggests that he not return to Monroe. She has moved on.
Karen Kelly
Karen Kelly is a white woman with whom Walter conducts an affair. Kelly later becomes involved with Ralph Myers, who falsely accuses Walter of murdering Ronda Morrison. Kelly eventually is sentenced to ten years in prison for participating in the murder of Vickie Pittman.
Vickie Pittman
Vickie Pittman is a poor white woman for whose murder Ralph Myers and Karen Kelly serve time.
Ronda Morrison
Ronda Morrison is a well-liked white college student who is murdered while working at a cleaners. When her death goes unsolved, local law enforcement is eager to pin the crime on Walter McMillian. By the end of the book, Stevenson reflects that Morrison's murderer is still unknown.
