I marveled at how he seemed to take it in stride.
“I’ll figure out something else to do when I get back on my feet,” he told me.
After a few months, he went back to Monroe County and started collecting car parts for
resale. He owned the plot of land where he’d put his trailer and had become convinced, on
the advice of some friends, that he could generate income with a junk business—collecting
discarded vehicles and car parts and reselling them. The work was less physically demanding
than logging and allowed him to be outdoors. Before long his property was littered with
busted vehicles and scrap metal.
In 1998 , Walter and I were asked to go to Chicago to attend a national conference where
exonerated former death row prisoners were planning to gather. By the late 1990 s, the
evolution of DNA evidence had helped expose dozens of wrongful convictions. In many states,
the number of exonerations exceeded the number of executions. The problem was so
significant in Illinois that in 2003 , Governor George Ryan, a Republican, citing the
unreliability of capital punishment, commuted the death sentences of all 167 people on death
row. Concerns about innocence and the death penalty were intensifying, and support for the
death penalty in opinion polls began to drop. Abolitionists were becoming hopeful that more
profound death penalty reform or possibly a moratorium might be achievable. Our time in
Chicago with other exonerated former death row prisoners was energizing for Walter, who
seemed more motivated than ever to talk about his experience.
Around the same time, I started teaching at the New York University School of Law. I
would travel to New York to teach my classes and then fly back to Montgomery to run EJI. I
asked Walter to come to New York each year to talk with students, and it was always a
powerful moment when he walked into the classroom. He was a survivor of a criminal justice
system that had proven, in his case, just how brutally unfair and cruel it could be. His
personality, presence, and witness said something extraordinary about the humanity of
people directly impacted by systemic abuse. His firsthand perspective on the plight of people
wrongfully convicted was deeply meaningful to students, who often seemed overwhelmed by
Walter’s testimony. He usually spoke very briefly and would give short answers to the
questions posed to him. But he had an enormous effect on the students who met him. He
would laugh and joke and tell them he wasn’t angry or bitter, just grateful to be free. He
would share how his faith had helped him survive his hundreds of nights on death row.
One year, Walter got lost on the trip to New York, and he called to tell me that he couldn’t
make it. He seemed confused and couldn’t offer a coherent explanation of what had happened
at the airport. When I got back home, I went to see him and he seemed his usual self, just a
little down. He told me that his junkyard business wasn’t going great. When he described his
finances, it became clear he was spending the money we’d secured for him more quickly than
seemed prudent. He was buying equipment to make his collection of cars simpler, but he
wasn’t generating the kind of revenue necessary to support the costs. After an hour or two of
anxious talk, he relaxed a bit and seemed to return to the jovial Walter I’d come to know. We
agreed that we would travel together on any future trips.
Walter wasn’t the only one who was facing new financial pressures. When a conservative
majority took power in Congress in 1994 , legal aid to death row prisoners became a political
target, and federal funding was quickly eliminated. Most of the capital representation