Walter McMillian, 1985

On a Saturday morn­ing in November, 1986, Ronda Morrison opened the Jackson Cleaners in Monroeville, Alabama by her­self and served sev­er­al cus­tomers by 10 AM. At around 10:45, some cus­tomers entered the store, but could find no one work­ing there. They looked around and final­ly dis­cov­ered Ronda’s body on the floor. She was dead. There was no appar­ent blood, and it appeared the vic­tim had been sex­u­al­ly assault­ed. It also appeared that mon­ey had been tak­en from the cash register.

The local police began their inves­ti­ga­tion with­out wait­ing for experts from the state crime lab to arrive. Their search for fin­ger­prints was hin­dered by the pres­ence of so many prints from cus­tomers and by the police’s rel­a­tive inex­pe­ri­ence. They did find five spent shell cas­ings from a .25 cal­iber hand­gun. A sub­se­quent autop­sy revealed three slugs in Ronda’s body, includ­ing one fired from close range. The coro­ner con­clud­ed that she had lived for about five min­utes after being shot. No semen was found in or on her body, or on her clothing.

When an offi­cer from the Alabama Bureau of Investigation final­ly arrived on the scene, there was fin­ger­print pow­der on near­ly every sur­face and Ronda’s body had already been tak­en to the funer­al home, thus mak­ing accu­rate fin­ger­print­ing and a detailed exam­i­na­tion of fibers at the scene, hairs, the exact loca­tion of the body, facial expres­sion, the col­or of the vic­tim’s skin, and sim­i­lar evi­dence, impossible.

Police inter­viewed sev­er­al sus­pects and a reward was post­ed, but the crime remained unsolved for sev­en months. At that time, Ralph Myers, a white man with a long crim­i­nal record, was arrest­ed for the mur­der of anoth­er young woman in Alabama. He was inter­ro­gat­ed about Ronda Morrison’s mur­der and even­tu­al­ly stat­ed that Walter McMillian, a 46-year-old black man from Monroe County, had killed Ronda. Two oth­er wit­nessed cor­rob­o­rat­ed parts of Myers’s sto­ry. McMillian was reput­ed to be a mar­i­jua­na deal­er and was dat­ing a white woman from the area. He had a minor criminal record.

The defense asked that the tri­al be moved from Monroe County because of all the pub­lic­i­ty sur­round­ing the case. The judge agreed to move the tri­al from Monroe County to Baldwin County, which had a sub­stan­tial­ly small­er per­cent­age of Black peo­ple in its pop­u­la­tion. Testimony at the tri­al last­ed one and a half days. The evi­dence against McMillian con­sist­ed chiefly in the following testimony:

1. Ralph Myers said that he and McMillian drove to Jackson Cleaners on November 1. He said that while wait­ing for McMillian he heard pop­ping nois­es, went into the store him­self and saw McMillian near the vic­tim’s body with mon­ey in his hands.
2. Bill Hooks tes­ti­fied that he had seen McMillian’s ​“low-rid­er” truck near the Cleaners on the morn­ing of the mur­der and that he had seen Myers and McMillian dri­ving away from the Cleaners. Hooks said that he had tried to give the police some of this evi­dence the night of the crime, after he had been arrest­ed for uri­nat­ing in public.
3. A sur­prise wit­ness, Joe Hightower, who the pros­e­cu­tion said had only stepped for­ward four days ear­li­er, tes­ti­fied that he, too, saw the ​“low-rid­er” truck near the Cleaners on November 1, 1986. Hightower said that he had seen the same truck many times before and that he knew it was McMillian’s truck because he had been to McMillian’s house to buy mar­i­jua­na. His com­ment about buy­ing mar­i­jua­na was strick­en from the record.

McMillian’s defense attor­ney called six wit­ness­es who tes­ti­fied that he was at his home on the morn­ing of November 1, tak­ing part in a fish-fry. McMillian did not tes­ti­fy. He was found guilty of first degree mur­der dur­ing a robbery.

The penal­ty phase of the tri­al to deter­mine if a death sen­tence should be giv­en began imme­di­ate­ly after the guilty ver­dict. The pros­e­cu­tion put on no wit­ness­es. The defense put on only one wit­ness, Walter McMillian. McMillian tried to explain that he was inno­cent of the crime and that he did not know Ralph Myers, but the judge cut him off, since this phase was about pun­ish­ment, not guilt.

In its clos­ing argu­ment, the state empha­sized the beau­ty of Ronda’s life and the cru­el­ty of her mur­der. The defense argued that only God should decide who lives and who dies. Only once did the attor­ney mention McMillian.

Ronda Reene Morrison was a pret­ty 18-year-old junior col­lege stu­dent at the time of her death in November, 1986. She worked part-time at Jackson Cleaners, a dry clean­ing estab­lish­ment in the town of Monroeville, Alabama. Ronda Morrison was a pop­u­lar girl who eas­i­ly made oth­er peo­ple smile. In high school, she attend­ed Monroe Academy, the pri­vate all-white high school formed by town par­ents to avoid racial inte­gra­tion. Ronda knew few black peo­ple, and none of them well. She still liked watch­ing Walt Disney fairy tales and she believed that basi­cal­ly every­one was good deep down.

Ronda was Charles and Bertha Morrison’s only child, and they con­sid­ered her to be a gift from God. Mr. Morrison worked at a paper mill and Mrs. Morrison worked at a gar­ment fac­to­ry. They were not well-to-do, but had a com­fort­able house. After the guilty ver­dict, they pre­pared a short vic­tim-impact state­ment. They said, ​“Our life had cen­tered around our daugh­ter. Now that she is gone we have no goal in life.” Before sub­mit­ting their vic­tim-impact state­ment, they con­sult­ed with their min­is­ter at Eastwood Baptist Church. He urged them to for­give Walter McMillian, but also to demand his exe­cu­tion. The Morrison’s wrote: ​“This man took our daugh­ter’s life and should pay with his own.”

Walter McMillian was mar­ried to Minnie McMillian for 25 years. They had met as teenagers. When Minnie became preg­nant in 1962, they got mar­ried. During their first year togeth­er, they almost starved, with Walter work­ing as a field hand for $14 per week. They lived in a sharecropper’s shack.

Walter often sought bet­ter work to sup­port his fam­i­ly. Sometimes Minnie went with him, at oth­er times she stayed in Monroeville. He suf­fered some work relat­ed injuries and even­tu­al­ly came back to Monroeville and opened his own land clear­ing busi­ness. On the side, he sold mar­i­jua­na. One of his cus­tomers was a white woman named Karen Kelly. They became roman­ti­cal­ly involved. In the midst of her own legal trou­bles, Kelly had accused McMillian of anoth­er mur­der. McMillian’s arrest record con­sist­ed of one con­vic­tion for pos­ses­sion of mar­i­jua­na, for which he was fined $100; one charge of sell­ing mar­i­jua­na, which was dropped; and one charge for cut­ting anoth­er man with a knife out­side a night­club, for which he was giv­en a year’s probation.

It was very dif­fi­cult for Minnie to raise the mon­ey to pay for Walter’s defense. Her church and the local black com­mu­ni­ty helped. At times, the attor­neys threat­ened to stop work­ing if they were not paid. Minnie was upset when she learned about Karen Kelly, but she stead­fast­ly believed in Walter’s innocence.