Just Mercy (Adapted for Young Adults): A True Story of the Fight for Justice

Bryan drives out to rural Alabama to meet with Walter’s family, including his wife, Minnie, and their children. They take him to meet Walter’s large extended family, who applaud Bryan and thank him for his help. When the family apologizes that they gave all their money to the first trial lawyers, Chestnut and Boynton, Bryan assures them that his law center is a nonprofit and he will not charge them anything. Then Walter’s older sister, Armelia Hand, explains that the justice system has broken their hearts. She says:

I feel like they done put me on death row, too. What do we tell these children about how to stay out of harm’s way when you can be at your own house, minding your own business, surrounded by your entire family, and they still put some murder on you that you ain’t do and send you to death row? (80)

Bryan does not know how to respond, and the encounter leaves him worried but determined to help.

Bryan gets his first big break when a man named Darnell Houston comes forward. Darnell can prove that one of the witnesses in the original trial, Bill Hooks, was lying. Bill Hooks claimed to see Walter’s truck when he drove by the cleaners on the day of the murder, but Darnell says that he and Bill were working together in an auto-parts store all day.