Michael O’Connor

Michael O’Connor is a lawyer who joined Bryan Stevenson’s organization and became a central investigator in Walter McMillian’s case. His path to legal work ran through heroin addiction, the death of a close friend, and a family that helped him rebuild his life; the experiences he had known on the street remained connected to the work he chose to do. In Montgomery, he and Stevenson pursued evidence that challenged the State’s case against McMillian and prepared to seek relief through the courts.

Background and Recovery

O’Connor grew up outside Philadelphia in a working-class neighborhood as the son of Irish immigrants. When friends in high school began experimenting with hard drugs, he did too, and he developed a heroin addiction. For several years, drug dependency and instability carried him from one crisis to another, with overdose an increasing danger. The overdose death of a close friend became a turning point that motivated him to work his way back to sobriety.

His family did not abandon him during those years. Their support helped him stabilize and return to college. At Penn State, he proved an outstanding student and graduated summa cum laude; his academic record then carried him to Yale Law School. His education marked a dramatic change in circumstance, but it did not sever his connection to the suffering he had encountered during his years on the street. The account presents that connection as part of what drew him toward helping people in trouble.

Joining the McMillian Case

When Stevenson interviewed O’Connor for a position, O’Connor apologized for the darker episodes in his past. Stevenson regarded him as a strong fit for the kind of staff the organization was building. O’Connor accepted the job, moved to Montgomery, and joined the McMillian case without hesitation. His arrival gave Stevenson another lawyer to devote time to an investigation that had grown more demanding after the appeal brief was filed.

The two lawyers spent days following leads, interviewing dozens of people, testing rumors, and examining different theories about the murder of Ronda Morrison. Stevenson increasingly believed that freeing McMillian would require them to determine who had actually killed Morrison. O’Connor’s contribution was practical as well as personal: he helped shoulder an investigation that Stevenson described as increasingly consuming and bewildering, and gave him a colleague with whom to share its pressures.

Investigative Work and New Evidence

Their investigation produced evidence challenging the credibility of Bill Hooks, whose testimony had implicated McMillian. County financial records showed that Sheriff Tate had paid Hooks close to $5,000 in reward money and expenses, as well as money for travel in and out of the county around the time of trial. The payments were material to assessing Hooks’s testimony, but had not been disclosed to McMillian’s trial counsel.

The lawyers also found that Hooks was released from jail immediately after giving police his statement that he had seen McMillian’s low-rider truck at the cleaners on the day of the murder. Court records showed that the district attorney and sheriff had also obtained the dismissal of city charges and fines against Hooks, although they had no authority in city courts. The State was obligated to disclose that charges had been dismissed in exchange for cooperation with authorities; it had not done so. These records turned suspicions about the State’s evidence into specific, document-supported grounds for challenging the conviction.

O’Connor also helped pursue evidence from Ralph Myers, who unexpectedly called Stevenson and asked him to come see him. Myers was imprisoned at St. Clair Correctional Institution in Springville, Alabama, and Stevenson and O’Connor arranged to meet him three days later. In the intervening days, they ran together after work and considered what Myers might disclose. O’Connor questioned whether they could trust a witness who had fabricated a story capable of putting an innocent man on death row. His caution captured the difficulty of their task: Myers might provide important new testimony, but his history made that testimony uncertain.

Court Challenges and Narrative Role

As the investigation developed, O’Connor and Stevenson prepared a Rule 32 petition to return the case to a trial court, where they could present new evidence and seek discovery of the State’s files. The petition raised claims that had not been available for trial or direct appeal, including ineffective assistance of counsel, the State’s failure to disclose evidence, new evidence of innocence, and police and prosecutorial misconduct. They filed it in Monroe County Circuit Court. O’Connor’s work thus extended from investigating the case to helping turn what the investigation uncovered into claims for judicial review.

At the later evidentiary hearing, the defense team had documentary evidence to present alongside Myers’s new testimony. O’Connor and Stevenson had reviewed the case repeatedly and were concerned that Myers might buckle under pressure when brought back to the county courthouse. They also had Brenda Lewis, a former Montgomery police officer who had joined the organization as a paralegal, contact witnesses before the hearing to review details and steady their nerves. O’Connor’s place in this work was part of a growing team assembled to test the official account and present evidence that had been withheld.

The book’s account defines O’Connor less through a separate personal storyline than through the way his history and labor converge in the McMillian investigation. The experience of addiction and recovery preceded his legal education, but his past was not presented as something he had simply left behind: his concern remained connected to the people in trouble he had come to know. In the case, that commitment took the form of sustained, collaborative work—tracking witnesses, scrutinizing records, and helping build a legal route toward a new examination of McMillian’s conviction.