Summary
Chapter Eight: All God’s Children
Stevenson recounts the case of Trina Garnett. She was from a poor area in Chester, Pennsylvania. Trina’s father was extremely abusive to her mother, raping her and beating her. She and her siblings learned to hide from him when he was drunk and prowling around the house to abuse them. Trina had intellectual disabilities and suffered disfiguring burns as a young child. After her mother died, her father began sexually abusing her, and so she and her sisters moved to other relatives’ houses, only to find these living situations disrupted by violence, leaving Trina out onto the streets. The desperate circumstances compounded Trina’s emotional and mental health problems.
In August 1976, when Trina was fourteen, she accidentally set fire to a friend’s house after sneaking in and lighting matches to see in the dark. The boys she had come to visit were sleeping, and died from smoke asphyxiation. The boys’ mother accused her of setting the fire intentionally. Trina’s lawyer was incompetent and didn’t protect her from being charged for second-degree murder as an adult. She was condemned to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Soon after arriving at Muncy women’s prison, a male correctional officer raped and impregnated her. The officer was fired but not prosecuted. Trina gave birth to her son while handcuffed to a bed, and the boy was then taken into foster care. By thirty, prison doctors diagnosed Trina with multiple sclerosis, intellectual disability, and mental illness related to trauma. At the time of writing in 2014, Stevenson notes that Trina is fifty-two and still in prison for a crime she committed as a child. She is one of five hundred child offenders serving life in Pennsylvania, which has the largest population of child offenders condemned to die in prison in the world.
Stevenson recounts the case of Ian Manuel, who in 1990, as a thirteen-year-old, was arrested and charged with armed robbery and attempted homicide. On his lawyer’s advice, he pled guilty, thinking he’d only get fifteen years. He was sentenced to life in the Apalachee Correctional Institution. To protect him from sexual assault, Ian was put in solitary confinement, a concrete box the size of a closet with three showers a week and occasional exercise. He began cutting himself with anything sharp on his food tray. He spent eighteen years in solitary.
Once a month, Ian was allowed a phone call. Ironically, he ended speaking most often to Debbie Baigre, the woman he had shot. During their regular correspondence, Baigre encouraged him to remain strong. After a few years she wrote the court and tried to get Ian’s sentence reduced due to its severity. She advocated for him, and explained how he’d been a child without supervision or support, but the courts ignored her.
Stevenson recounts the case of Antonio Nuñez, who grew up surrounded by a turbulent home life and neighborhood gang violence in South Central Los Angeles. As a thirteen-year-old Antonio was shot in the stomach by a stranger. His brother came outside and was shot in the head. Antonio’s mother sent him to Las Vegas, and he tried to recover from the trauma of his brother’s death. But probation officers ordered him back to LA, where he suffered flashbacks to the shooting and acquired a gun for self-defense. He was arrested and placed in a juvenile camp. Antonio later met two adults who convinced him to join them in a pretend kidnapping. They gave him a gun and asked him to shoot at a van following them. The van turned out to be driven by undercover cops. No one was injured, but he was tried with his 27-year-old codefendant and sentenced to life in prison, the judge assuming he was a gang member. At fourteen, Antonio became the youngest person in the U.S. condemned to die in prison for a crime in which no one was physically injured.
Stevenson comments that by the late 1980s and early 1990s, fear and anger were sweeping the country and fueling mass incarceration. Criminologists stoked fears of black and brown children becoming “superpredators.” By 2000, the juvenile population increased while juvenile crime rates decreased, thereby proving the superpredator theory incorrect. But jurisdictions had already created laws to allow children to be tried as adults. Trina, Ian, and Antonio were among thousands of children scattered throughout prisons in the country, and they were all damaged and made hopeless by the justice system. When Stevenson meets them as adults, he is touched by their sensitivity and intellect. The EJI decides to create a photo book to highlight the plight of children sentenced to die in prison. Stevenson includes a letter from Ian, in which he thanks him for the photoshoot and asks if he may have copies. He says he appreciates everything the EJI is doing for him.
Chapter Nine: I’m Here
The date for Walter’s hearing is fast approaching, and with it the opportunity to present the new evidence Stevenson and Michael have uncovered. The officials overseeing the case are growing weary of the EJI’s requests for files and evidence the State has in its possession. The judge gives them only three days to present all their new evidence—a small amount of time. They also visit Ralph to make sure he actually tells the truth during his testimony. Stevenson is anxious the morning of the hearing, and dresses conservatively, trying to meet the court’s expectation of what a lawyer looks like.
The viewing area is packed with people from the community and Walter’s family. Tom Chapman and Sheriff Tate are unhappy about the crowd, but Stevenson is energized by their presence. Stevenson begins by asking for testifying officers to be sequestered—made to sit outside so they can’t alter what they say based on other witnesses' accounts. The judge denies the request. In his opening statement, Stevenson explains that the State’s case against Walter was based on Myers’s testimony, and that there was no other evidence: nothing physical, nor a motive, or witnesses. Stevenson goes over Myers’s story, pointing out its inconsistencies. He concludes that Myers’s testimony was completely false.
Stevenson calls Myers to the witness stand, and Myers confirms that his testimony was not at all true. He goes on to question each detail of the testimony, and Myers confirms that none of it was true. After Myers is cross-examined and escorted out, Stevenson calls Clay Kast to the stand to disprove Bill Hooks and Joe Hightower’s claims they’d seen Walter’s low-rider truck at the crime scene. The truck hadn’t been modified until months after the murder. They continue to call witnesses, all of them white and none of them with any loyalties to Walter. Judge Norton seems confused at the new evidence being presented, which suggests people in law enforcement had been so set on convicting Walter that they’d ignored evidence showing his innocence. At the end of the day, Walter expresses his pleasure at hearing the truth finally come out. His family is also excited.
On day two, a larger crowd of black folks have arrived to support Walter, but they are denied entry. The courtroom benches are filled with white people who support Chapman and Valeska. Stevenson complains to the judge that Walter’s family and supporters aren’t being allowed into the courtroom, but the judge says they’ll have to get there earlier next time. Eventually, only a few close members of Walter’s family are allowed in, only after first going through a metal detector that wasn’t present the day before. An older woman named Mrs. Williams trembles and tears up at the sight of a police dog in the courtroom. She turns and runs from the room. Despite the dark mood, it is a good day in court. A state mental health worker named Dr. Bernard Bryant testifies that Myers had told him he was harassed by local police into confessing to a crime he didn’t commit.
The day ends with Stevenson feeling tired but pleased. As he walks to his car he sees Mrs. Williams in the parking lot and apologizes for how she was intimidated. She says she should have come in, but when she saw the dog she thought about when a police dog had been set on her in 1965, as she marched for her voting rights. Mrs. Williams is there again the next morning: she says aloud that she isn’t afraid of the dog as she passes it. She loudly announces to Stevenson that she is here. She continues standing after everyone else sits. “I’m here!” she announces again, with tears in her eyes. Stevenson realizes her statement bears significance: she is here because she can’t be kept away.
The third and last day of hearings goes well. The most powerful evidence is revealed: tapes of Tate interrogating Myers. The State has no rebuttal case. After the hearing, Michael and Stevenson go to the beach. He runs over the details in his head, searching for any missteps but unable think of any. Michael suddenly leaves the water looking worried. He asks what Stevenson thinks their opponents will do now that they know how much evidence they have to prove Walter’s innocence. Stevenson says he doesn’t know, and they watch the sun fade into darkness.
Chapter Ten: Mitigation
Stevenson comments that American prisons have become warehouses for the mentally ill, who were historically committed to mental institutions, which were in their own ways fraught with issues of abuse and misdiagnosis. In the 1960s and 1970s, laws were enacted to prevent involuntary commitment to mental institutions and people were empowered to refuse treatment. But while the reforms were needed, a consequence was that deinstitutionalized poor people suffering mental disabilities were at great risk of imprisonment. In 2014, more than 50 percent of prison and jail inmates have a diagnosed mental illness. These inmates are often subjected to frustrated prison guards and abused by fellow inmates.
Stevenson recalls when he met Avery Jenkins, a man whose case indicated he had a serious mental illness. At the prison, there is a truck covered in Confederate flags and stickers, and gun racks. He is surprised when the guards say he must be strip-searched before visiting Jenkins. Stevenson says this is not the protocol, but submits to an aggressive search. The guard proudly says the truck is his truck. Jenkins asks for a chocolate milkshake—a bizarre request that tests Stevenson’s patience. But he realizes how impaired Jenkins is, and promises to bring one next time. He was ill, but his trial records made no reference to a mental illness. Back at his office, Stevenson investigates Jenkins’s background of abuse and schizophrenia and substance abuse. His crime was stabbing a man he believed to be a demon.
Stevenson is scheduled to present this history to the court. In the courtroom, the correctional officer with the truck is there. Over three days, medical experts explain how Avery’s background could lead to dangerous behavior. They explain how former foster parents worsened Avery’s invisible disabilities, which people tend to dismiss and brutally judge.
A month after the hearing, he returns to the prison to check up on Jenkins and meets the same hostile guard, but this time he is polite to Stevenson and doesn’t subject him to the same poor treatment. The guard admits that after what he heard in the court, he appreciates what Stevenson is doing to help Avery. The guard says he too was raised in foster care, and he hadn’t thought anybody had had it as bad as him. He explains how he became angry because of his abusive homes, and he realizes he is still angry. The guard says he brought Avery to a Wendy’s for a milkshake on the drive back to the prison. Avery never again asked Stevenson for a milkshake. Ultimately, a new trial was ordered and Avery was taken off death row and to a mental health facility. Stevenson learned the guard soon quit the prison.
Chapter Eleven: I’ll Fly Away
The EJI receives the third bomb threat in two months and quickly clears the building. Two years earlier, a number of actual bombs had been sent to legal professionals connected to civil rights, so they had to take the threats seriously. The caller sounds middle-aged and Southern, and Stevenson is certain the threats are connected to the McMillian case. No bomb is found; after waiting an hour, they return to the office and get back to work.
A few days later, Judge Norton denies relief and the death penalty conviction remains. Stevenson decides to bring the evidence to the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals. The EJI had won reversals for a number of death row prisoners. Michael leaves EJI and is replaced by another lawyer named Bernard Harcourt, who immerses himself in Walter’s case. Stevenson wonders if positive media attention might help the case, even though sympathetic pieces about people on death row usually triggered backlash in the South. Journalist Pete Earley jumps on the case, and 60 Minutes reporters come down from New York to interview many people whose testimony the EJI had presented at the hearing. Local media try to discredit the piece, but people in the community are thrilled to see evidence laid out on national television.
Privately, DA Tom Chapman worries about the contradictory evidence. He asks officials to reexamine the evidence. The investigators admit to Stevenson that there is no way Walter killed Ronda Morrison. They can’t believe a jury would ever have convicted him. The investigators ask the EJI to help find the real murderer so that people will accept Walter’s innocence. Stevenson had heard of a white man who had been seen leaving the cleaners. They suspected a white man who contacted them frequently to ask about the case. He claimed to have information, and said he could prove Walter innocent; the caller had a history of stalking and violence against women. The investigators suggest that the State would like to maintain the status quo—i.e. leave Walter on death row until the real killer is discovered, even though he’d already been there for six years despite his innocence.
Stevenson receives word that the court has ruled in the EJI’s favor and overruled Walter’s conviction and death sentence, ordering a new trial. Stevenson is flooded with relief and goes straight to death row to share the news with Walter, who discusses everything he has missed in his six years on death row, mostly food. They laugh together. Stevenson calls Tom Chapman and says he will file a motion to dismiss all charges against Walter. The State joins the motion and a final hearing is set. The night before, Stevenson picks up a suit from Minnie, Walter’s wife, for Walter to wear. She suggests that maybe Walter shouldn’t come back once released: the gossip and lies he’d have to live with in Monroe would be too much. Stevenson suggests that the miscarriage of justice will never be completely over for Walter.
Stevenson relays the information to Walter, who is surprised and hurt to hear what Minnie said. The courtroom is packed with Walter’s family and supporters. There are no metal detectors or dogs. Walters is brought in wearing his suit, without shackles. The judge quickly grants the motion to dismiss all charges against Walter and asks if there is anything further. Stevenson reflects on how much pain and suffering Walter has been through, and announces that it had been too easy to condemn him and far too difficult to prove his innocence. He says there is important work to be done in the state. After Walter is pronounced a free man, Stevenson drives him to Holman Prison to pick up his possessions, including the Timex watch and wallet he’d had when arrested in 1987. The wallet had twenty-three dollars still in it. In the car, Walter moves his arms up and down and says he feels like a bird.
Analysis
With Trina Garnett’s case, Stevenson highlights not only how people with intellectual disabilities are mishandled by the justice system, but how people in the United States can be locked up for life for crimes they committed as children.
The theme of children being tried as adults is evident in Ian Manuel’s story as well. The fact that Ian and the woman he shot began a regular correspondence, leading her to advocate for his release, is a moment of profound situational irony and conveys the importance of hope and resilience.
Antonio Nuñez’s case is significant because he is the youngest person to be tried as an adult and sentenced to life in prison for a crime in which no one was physically harmed—a sentence that resulted from racial prejudice and presumption of gang associations. As with other prisoners Stevenson has met, these three people are sensitive and have been traumatized by the criminal justice system.
The motif of police corruption and theme of racial injustice arises when, after the first day of Walter’s new hearing is successful, law enforcement exclude Walter’s supporters and equip the courtroom with metal detectors and police dogs. These factors intimidate Walter’s supporters and strip them of the previous day’s joy.
Mrs. Williams’s story to Stevenson about how the court dog reminded her of the dogs police set on her decades earlier when marching for civil rights highlights the theme of trauma and PTSD. When she sees the dog, she has an uncontrollable physical reaction of terror. However, her refusal to be intimidated by the dogs on the third day of hearings showcases Mrs. Williams’s resilience. Her announcement—“I’m here”—has a symbolic resonance: she is here despite every insidious force that has tried to keep her and her spirit subjugated.
Stevenson’s brief history of the intersection of mental illness and imprisonment invokes the theme of the judicial system mistreating vulnerable people with disabilities and histories of abuse. Avery Jenkins’s mental illness is so evident that Stevenson can’t believe his case excludes any mention of it. Stevenson presents Avery’s history of abuse in the foster care system and makes a compelling argument for how his invisible disabilities have not been recognized by the State. In an instance of situational irony, Stevenson unknowingly convinces a formerly hostile guard to become polite and understanding, having understood that he himself had been damaged by the foster care system.
The theme of hope and resilience comes up again when Walter’s conviction is finally overturned. Despite every setback and violent intimidation, the EJI has been successful in their case; they never gave up hope, and they turned every setback into more fuel for their fight. Employing a simile, Walter flaps his arms and says he feels free like a bird.
