Monique Hicks

She just seemed very truthful.

She had nothing to gain by coming forward.

She had heard this information, and she felt like, I have to share this.

She was a very credible witness compared to some of the others that took the stand.

We believed her.

Obviously, we believed her because we convicted him, and it was on her testimony.

At the end of the trial, once the verdict was read and everything was done, the jury was finished with their job.

And I remember the judge saying that Taforis would be sentenced at another date.

I never heard anything.

Didn't see it in the news.

May have just missed it that night.

The internet wasn't a thing.

I couldn't look it up, Google it.

So I honestly never knew ultimately what happened to Mr. Johnson.

And so I was reading the book, and as I'm reading the book, I'm like, oh, wow, this was set in Birmingham in the 80s.

I was like, I was on a jury in the 90s in Jefferson County in Birmingham.

That's interesting.

By the time I got to the end of the book, I remember I looked at my husband, and I said, oh, my goodness, I think we convicted an innocent man.

Because I was like, there's no way 10 years later that—

the injustices and the corruption that were going on in the system had cleaned themselves up.