that Ralph Meyers perjured himself at the original trial and this court having determined that there is insufficient
evidence to support that theory, it is therefore ORDERED, ADJUDGED and DECREED that the trial testimony of Ralph
Myers is not found to have been perjured testimony.
Done this 19 th day of May, 1992.THOMAS B. NORTON, JR.
Circuit JudgeWhile Chapman had suggested that Myers must have been pressured to recant, the district
attorney presented no actual evidence to support that claim, which made the judge’s ruling
hard to understand. I had advised Walter and his family that we would likely need to go to an
appellate court for any real chance of relief, despite how positive everyone thought the
hearing had been.
I was optimistic about what our evidence might accomplish in the Alabama Court of
Criminal Appeals. We were now regularly arguing cases in front of that court. Following my
first McMillian argument, we had filed almost two dozen death penalty appeals, and the court
was starting to respond to our advocacy. We had won four reversals in death penalty cases in
1990 , four more in 1991 , and by the end of 1992 , we’d won relief for another eight death
row prisoners. The court frequently complained about being forced to order new trials or
grant relief, but nonetheless ruled in our favor. In a few years, some of the appellate court
judges would be attacked and replaced in partisan judicial elections by candidates who
complained about the court’s rulings in death penalty cases. But we persisted and continued
raising reversible errors in capital cases. We were pushing the court to enforce the law in
these cases, and when they refused, we were having success getting the Alabama Supreme
Court and federal courts to grant relief.
Based on this recent experience, I thought we could win relief for McMillian on appeal.
Even if the court was unwilling to rule that Walter was innocent and should be released, the
withholding of exculpatory evidence was extreme enough that the court would have a hard
time avoiding the case law requiring a new trial. Nothing could be assured, but I explained to
Walter that we were only just now getting to a court where our claims would be seriously
considered.
Michael had stayed long past the two years he had committed to us, but he was now
scheduled to move to San Diego to start a job as a federal public defender. He agonized about
leaving our office, although he was less conflicted about leaving Alabama.
I assigned one of our new attorneys, Bernard Harcourt, to replace Michael on Walter’s case.
Bernard was a lot like Michael in that he was smart, determined, and extremely hardworking.
He had first worked with me when he was a law student at Harvard Law School. He became
so engaged in the work that he asked the federal judge he was clerking for after law school if
he could cut short his two-year clerkship to join us in Alabama. The judge agreed, and
Bernard arrived shortly before Michael left. Raised in New York City by French parents, he
had attended the Lycée Français de New York in Manhattan, a high school that was
unapologetic about its European perspective on education. After graduating from Princeton,
Bernard worked in banking before pursuing his law degree. He had been preparing for a
traditional legal career until he came down to work with us one summer and became
fascinated by the issues that death penalty cases presented. He and his girlfriend, Mia, moved