NEW SOURCE: National Georgraphic Connects Death Penalty and the town of ​“To Kill A Mockingbird”

The January 2006 edition of the National Geographic features the town of Monroeville, Alabama, home of freed death row inmate Walter McMillian (pictured) and Harper Lee, author of To Kill a Mockingbird. In the article, which highlights the town’s annual theatrical tribute to Lee’s book, McMillian’s case is noted as “an eerie echo” of the book’s storyline. In a resemblance to Lee’s black fictional character Tom Robinson, McMillian was convicted in 1987 of murdering a white woman in Monroeville despite a lack of reliable evidence. He spent seven years on Alabama’s death row before attorney Bryan Stevenson, with some assistance from a piece on 60 Minutes, successfully achieved his exoneration. McMillian returned to Monroeville after his release. (National Geographic, January 2006). See Innocence and Resources.