suggestion that someone was putting him up to this, Ralph became indignant. He looked at
the prosecutor and said:
Me, I can simply look in your face and anybody else’s face dead eye to eyeball and tell you that that’s all I—anything
that was told about McMillian was a lie.... As far as I know, McMillian didn’t have anything to do with this because on
the day, on the day they say this happened, I didn’t even see McMillian. And that’s exactly what I told lots of people.On re-direct examination, I asked Ralph to acknowledge once again that his trial testimony
was false and that he had knowingly put an innocent man on death row. Then I took a
moment and walked over to the defense table to make sure I hadn’t forgotten anything. I
reviewed my notes and then glanced at Michael. “Are we okay?”
Michael looked astonished. “Ralph was great. He was really, really great.”
I looked at Walter and only then realized that his eyes were moist. He was shaking his head
from side to side in disbelief. I put my hand on his shoulder before announcing to the court
that Myers could be excused. We had no further questions.
Myers stood up to leave the courtroom. As the deputies led him to a side door, he looked
apologetically at Walter before being escorted out. I’m not sure Walter saw him.
People in the courtroom started whispering again. I heard one of Walter’s relatives, in a
muted tone, say, “Thank you, Jesus!”
The next challenge was to rebut the testimony of Bill Hooks and Joe Hightower, who had
claimed to see Walter’s modified “low-rider” truck pulling out from the cleaners about the
time Ronda Morrison was murdered.
I called Clay Kast to the stand. The white mechanic testified that McMillian’s truck was not
a low-rider in November 1986 when Ronda Morrison was murdered. Kast had records and
clearly remembered modifying Walter’s truck in May 1987 , over six months after the day
when Hooks and Hightower claimed they’d seen a low-rider truck at the cleaners. We finished
the day with Woodrow Ikner, a Monroeville police officer who testified that he was the first
on the scene and that the body of Ronda Morrison was not where Myers had testified it was.
Ikner said it was clear from his observation of the murder scene that Morrison had been shot
in the back after a struggle that had started in the bathroom and ended in the rear of the
cleaners, where the body was found. Ikner’s description of the scene contradicted the
assertion that Myers had made at trial about seeing Morrison near the front counter. More
significantly, Ikner testified that he’d been asked by Pearson, the trial prosecutor, to testify
that Morrison’s body had been dragged through the store from the front counter to the spot
where it was found. Ikner was indignant on the stand as he recalled the conversation. He
knew that such testimony would be false and had told the prosecutors that he refused to lie.
He was soon after discharged from the police department.
Evidentiary hearings, like jury trials, can be exhausting. I had done the direct examination
of all of the witnesses and was surprised when I realized that it was already 5 : 00 P.M. The
hearing was going well. I was excited and energized to be able, finally, to lay out all of the
evidence proving Walter’s innocence. I kept an eye on Judge Norton to make sure he was still
engaged, and he seemed visibly affected by the proceedings. I believed the concerned look on
his face revealed confusion about what he was going to do in light of this evidence, and I
considered the judge’s newfound confusion and concern to be real progress.
All of the witnesses we called during the first day were white, and none had any loyalties