“Bryan Stevenson is the founder and Executive Director of the Equal Justice Initiative, a human rights organization in Montgomery, Alabama. Under his leadership, EJI has won major legal challenges eliminating excessive and unfair sentencing, exonerating innocent death row prisoners, confronting abuse of the incarcerated and the mentally ill, and aiding children prosecuted as adults” (eli.org).
Stevenson worked with many poor people who were wrongly convicted. Discuss how the 60 minutes video infers that police manipulated people to wrongly testify? Why do you think the police did that if the truth was in question? Why were the prisoners willing to lie? Why would Bill Hooks not be a credible witness (50)? Why do you think Ralph Myers willing to change his testimony even though he could face additional charges? Give specific examples from the video. Are you surprised by the information in this video? Why or why not?
Respond with a 150- word response and to two others students’ responses with 75- word responses.
Reply to these two students:
Kyle- As Ralph Myers Discussed with Ed Bradley of 60 Minutes, he was coerced by the police to lie during his trial and say that Walter McMillian had robbed and killed Ronda Morrison on the day of November 1, 1986. In return, the police would reduce Myers’ sentence from 30 years to 10 years, and they even said they had worked it out with the D.A. and the judge, so he would not get the electric chair for murder. “So he tells me ‘well, all you got to do is, you go along with what we want you to go along with’, and he says ‘I promise you, I’ve done got it fixed with the D.A., I’ve done got it fixed with the judge, and you won’t get but 30 years'” (Bradley 3:21). It would seem that a pair of corrupt, dirty cops tried to get witnesses and investigators to lie and give a false testimony so that Walter would be found guilty. Former police officer Woodrow Ikner was told by a prosecutor to say that the body had been dragged from behind the counter to the back of the cleaner, but he said that he could not testify because the evidence did not support such a statement. “I found a young lady in the Northeast corner of this building laying face down… in my opinion, no. There was particularly dust around this body, and there was no evidence that the dust was disturbed” (Bradley 6:26). This statement is also supported by Bryan Stevenson, who says that Ralph Myers’ story was “simply not true”. It would seem that the Alabama justice system went to some lengths to convict Walter of a crime he may not have committed. Several witnesses give different stories than the one Ralph Myers originally tells police, one man even saying that another witness, named Bill Hooks, had lied about his pickup truck being parked at the cleaners. Hooks had said that the truck he had seen was a lowrider, but Clay Kast, the mechanic who converted Walter’s pickup, says he worked on the truck 6 months after Ronda’s murder. “Sure, it was… she got murdered in November of ’86, and this, we’re talking May of ’87… if he drove by there when Ronda Morrison was murdered and he said it was a low-rider, he’s lying” (Bradley 9:46). Based on Mr. Kast’s claim, it would seem that Hooks lied about Walter’s truck. A man named Darnell Houston, who worked with Hooks as a mechanic, says “no way” because they were both still at work the morning Morrison’s body was discovered. Stevenson backs up Houston when he says that Hooks’ statement is total nonsense. “He’s benefitted quite significantly, based on his cooperation with the state in this case. He’s gotten at least five thousand dollars in reward money, they dismissed fines against him” (Bradley 11:48). Based on the evidence, Bill Hooks is a completely unreliable witness. He was paid off to lie by the cops, and charges against him were dropped. I think that Ralph Myers was willing to change his testimony even though he could face additional charges because he wanted to let the truth be known. The idea that dirty cops and judges would try to use a man like Walter McMillian as a scapegoat so that they wouldn’t look incompetent to the town is not surprising to me at all, since the police struggled for years to learn the identity of the Zodiac Killer, a man who brutally murdered 37 people in San Francisco in the 1960s and 1970s. I am also not surprised by such a racially motivated case, as it was one of the steps Yuri Bezmenov laid out in his “How to Brainwash a Nation” interview. He described the four steps as: Demoralization, Destabilization, Crisis, and Normalization. In Walter’s case, the arrest and following court trial were part of the Crisis stage, in which corruption deep within the system attempted to shift the focus from themselves onto a man who was known to be unfaithful to his wife and who had multiple relationships, especially with women like Karen Kelly. By convicting Walter, the justice system was in danger of falling apart, as the real murder suspect of Ronda Morrison was never caught and arrested, which is why they indicted Walter: to look competent, to look like they were doing their job.
Isabel- In the 60 minute video, the interviewer discusses that Ralph Myers lied and testified against McMillan because at the time, Myers was awaiting trial and a possible death sentence for murder. Myers stated that the Alabama Bureau of Investigation Agency used that information against Myers so that he would lie in court against McMillan. I think that the police did this because of the corruption in their agency and the racism that they held against African American’s in the United States. Prisoners were willing to lie because Investigation Agencies would tell prisoners that they could serve time instead of going to the electric chair. For the prisoners, lying and doing as the officers said was a way to avoid the death penalty and stay alive. Bill Hooks would not be a credible witness because he stated that he saw McMillan’s low rise car in front of the cleaners the day the girl died. We later find out that McMillan didn’t get his truck modified to a low rise until months after the murder of the girl. On 60 minutes, they also state that Hooks was getting at least a $5,000 benefit from officers for lying in court and testifying against McMillan. This makes his statement not credible and untrustworthy. I think Ralph Myers was willing to change his testimony even though he could face additional charges, because he wanted to better himself and to do that, he said he needed to be honest and tell the truth. Myers states “Well…it’s like this…I don’t know the words for that, but I can tell you this much, right is right, and wrong is wrong; and for man to straighten his own life out, he must tell the truth. He must try to do what is right. And that’s what I’m trying to do.” (Myers 3:55). From this statement made by Myers, I think he is truly trying to better himself; and to do that, he is willing to face the additional charges by stating the truth and being honest about what happened with the police forcing his untruthful statement. I am not surprised by this video; with the amount of history, stories, and racially motivated actions that have been taken against African Americans through the legislative system is endless. I can’t imagine how emotionally traumatizing it was for the prisoners to feel like they had to be selfish in a sense and lie in court so that they could live while another prisoner would be put on death row. I Imagine that some prisoners may not have thought about the negative consequences of their actions, but I think most would feel very heavy hearted by lying in court to hurt another person.
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