About three weeks into Indiana’s Coronavirus “Stay At Home” order, my 18-year old daughter and I were looking for (another) movie to watch. A few year’s back, I listened to the audiobook of Just Mercy, Bryan Stevenson’s powerful account of fighting to overturn wrongful death row convictions in Alabama over the last 30 years. Since 1989, the Equal Justice Initiative has saved 135 mostly African-American men from the death penalty, but it all started with Walter McMillan. Last year, the book was made into a feature film starring Michael B. Jordan as attorney Bryan Stevenson, and Jamie Foxx as Walter McMillan, a man who spent 6 years on death row for a crime he did not commit. We decided this would be an entertaining and poignant way to spend a rainy April evening. Injustice and Despair [Spoiler Alert] There’s a powerful scene about halfway through the film where Bryan Stevenson has completely exposed Walter’s bogus conviction. In any just system, the evidence is clearly pointing to a new trial and ultimate acquittal. The State’s only witness completely recants his coerced testimony. And yet the judge, looking squarely at an inarguable set of facts that made it impossible for Walter to … Continue reading I Don’t Think I’m a Racist, But I Know I’m a Sinner