Stevenson Mystery Summary

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Stevenson backdrop is the first-hand story of his client named Walter McMillian who was wrongfully convicted of a murder that he did not commit. McMillian was arrested, tried, and sentenced to death despite the fact that there were at least twenty people with him at his home that could corroborate his whereabouts at the time of the murder. Stevenson leads us through the events surrounding McMillians profoundly unjust incarceration, the fight to vindicate his client, his subsequent exoneration, and his tormented life after exoneration through his eventual death in 2013. Woven between the chapters of Walter McMillians story, we learn the stories of other men, women, and children who have been failed by our justice system. Men, women and children …show more content…

In a deranged and love-sick effort to win her back, Richardson hatched a plan to place a bomb on her front porch. His plan was to scare her into running back into his arms for safety and security. After placing the bomb on her front porch, he went across the street to watch it all unfold. As it turned out, tragically her niece was the one that found the bomb and rather than just terrify her, it killed her. He went to trial and the state invoked an unprecedented theory of transferred intent to validate his death penalty sentence. Stevenson took on Richardson’s case because according to Alabama’s capital statute murder must be intentional in order for a defendant to be eligible for the death penalty. Stevenson’s reasoning was that although Richardson had a huge heart, his childhood traumas, mother’s death, and the fact that he was a war veteran with psychological health issues, he made a bad decision. Stevenson petitioned the state for a stay of execution. Although he was unsuccessful in getting a stay of execution, I believe that that this case was one where Stevenson’s drive to right the legal systems wrongs made him overlook the fact that Richardson was a murderer no matter who the victim ended up being. Sure, there were rules broken in his sentencing, but he murdered a child. If we had an inquisitorial system of justice like we learned about in Lecture 5.2 part 1 and 2 where the truth was paramount to the procedure, he would have likely received the most severe punishment

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