Pete Earley

Pete Earley is a journalist whose reporting brought sustained attention to Walter McMillian’s case. After learning of the prosecution’s reliance on unreliable evidence, he examined the case records, spoke with people involved, and published Circumstantial Evidence, a detailed account that appeared a few months after McMillian’s release.

Entry into the Case

Earley came to the case through a chain of journalistic contacts. A year before Earley reached out, Washington Post journalist Walt Harrington had visited Alabama to report on the work of Bryan Stevenson and heard Stevenson describe McMillian’s case. Harrington passed the information to his journalist friend Earley, who then contacted Stevenson.

The case drew Earley in after he read the transcripts and files Stevenson provided. He spent time with several of the people involved and, like Stevenson, was astonished that McMillian had been convicted on such unreliable evidence. His engagement thus grew from reviewing the record and speaking with participants, rather than relying only on a secondhand account.

Reporting and Publication

Earley’s account extended beyond the initial discovery of the case. He worked through the documents and met with people connected to it, becoming familiar with the evidence and the prosecution that had produced McMillian’s conviction. The book that resulted, Circumstantial Evidence, was published a few months after McMillian was freed and provided a detailed account of the case.

Place in the Case’s Public Story

Earley’s book appeared as McMillian’s exoneration was attracting unusually extensive attention. The book gave readers a detailed account of the prosecution and its evidentiary weaknesses at a moment when McMillian’s experience was entering wider debate about the death penalty. Its publication forms part of the documented public record of the case; the account does not establish that Earley himself participated in the legal proceedings or in later public testimony.