In chapter 7, Stevenson requests a direct appeal of Walter’s conviction. Stevenson appears before Judge Patterson who is a former Alabama governor who is well known for resisting de-segregation and will break the law to preserve this notion. Stevenson argues that Walter’s conviction was based on racial biases and illegal proceedings which in no way persuades Patterson. Patterson asks Stevenson where he’s from, which places him above Stevenson and makes it seem like he has no right talking to him. After the hearing, Stevenson tells Walter to stay hopeful and that they have plenty of options left. Stevenson and his new colleague Michael O’Connor discover that officials paid Bill Hooks and somehow managed to get his charges dropped. They also …show more content…
He explains everything and ends the phone call by warning Stevenson to be careful because if he gets to the bottom of this they will kill him. At the end of this chapter, Stevenson and Michael go through all of the evidence they have collected, from Myers to the Pittman murder files and soon after this, the bomb threats started rolling in. In chapter 8, Stevenson tells the story of Trina Garret who was 14 when she committed her crime and was convicted as an adult of second-degree murder. Throughout her time in prison, she developed several mental illnesses, one of them being multiple sclerosis, and she became confined to a wheelchair. He then tells the story of a kid named Ian Manuel who was also convicted as an adult and due to the risk of rape they put him in solitary confinement. With no family, Ian reached out to Ms. Baigre, the women he shot, who accepted his apologies and tried to soften his sentence. The third story was of a boy named Antonio Nunez who was charged with aggravated kidnapping and attempted murder and the judge argued that Antonio is violent and sentenced him to life in prison. The EJI began representing all three of the kids in the stories that he