This is John Wallace’s true story. John Wallace was convicted of murder in Coweta County, Georgia in 1948.  A short five day trial with the jury taking seventy minutes to give their verdict.  I'm really surprised they took seventy minutes.  I think there minds were made up before they ever got elected to jury duty.  

John Wallace was a southern gentlemen who was only trying to help a fellow man. He had no way of knowing the depth of the web of lies, corruption, deceit and even murder in which he'd become entangled. This is his story and the tragedy of injustice that followed.

In John Wallace’s plea to the all male jury he gave us a small glimpse into his life's history and some of the mistakes he had made along the way. He defends his, so called, accomplices to the very end stating how they had nothing to do with William Turner's death. He took full responsibility of the terrible accident that cost a man his life. He asked for mercy but his plea fell on deaf ears.

These twelve men of the jury had already decided what they were going to do with John Wallace. It made no difference to them that testimony was changed in mid stream by the State's key witnesses. It made no difference to them that co-defendants were taken out of their cell in the dead of night and coerced into remaining silent and not testifying to the truth in Wallace’s defense. Nothing made any difference to them. Their minds were as set as the day they walked into that court room. The newspapers had done their damage. They had convinced the public at large that John Wallace was a wealthy baron from a neighboring county that thought he was king over all things.

He had the nerve to call his property his Kingdom and that to the citizens of Coweta County was his doom. He was too cocky to live. There was no justice for John Wallace. Every single person who would have spoken out on his behalf was scared to death with the looming threat of the electric chair also facing them. Character witnesses that could have testified to his real character was scared that somehow Coweta county law enforcement, the Potts brothers, would drum up some charge that would land them in the electric chair too. Wives begged their husbands not to go to that court room, in real fear that Sheriff Potts and his brother would arrest them too.

Sheriff Lamar Potts and his brother, the deputy ran Coweta County.  I'm told the sheriff spent thirty two years in that position.  I don't know if he had his brother with him all that time or not but during this time, his brother was his only deputy.  This is but one story that occurred during that reign.   A story about the good old boys of Georgia. 

The following is but a small section of the words spoken by John Wallace to the jury.

"I have never had the desire to take any human life. I am an average church going man. I go to church and Sunday School on Sunday. I love my God just like you love your God. Your God is my God. There is only one. I am no cold-blooded head hunter. I have never wanted to harm any man. I certainly tried to show you gentlemen. I have gone in quite a few details. They might not seem so essential to somebody, but they do to me. They are essential to me. It is my statement, and it is the truth. It is all the truth."

The Judge gave the jury their options: If after considering all of the facts and circumstances of the case, giving the defendant's statement just such weight and credit as you think it entitled to receive, if your minds are wavering, unsettled and unsatisfied, than that is the doubt of the law, and you should acquit, but if that doubt does not exist in your minds as to the guilt of the defendant, then you should convict. If the death of Wm turner alias Wilson Turner came from a blow received in Coweta then it does not matter where he died. If the evidence shows he died for other causes that did not occur in Coweta then you should acquit.

The punishment for murder in this State is death by electrocution unless the jury trying the case sees fit to recommend mercy. "We the jury find the defendant John Wallace guilty." A verdict reading that way would mean that the defendant, John Wallace would be put to death by electrocution.

'We the jury find the defendant John Wallace guilty, and recommend him to mercy. A verdict reading that way, would mean the defendant John Wallace would be sent to the penitentiary for and during his natural life.

Before you would be authorized to find the defendant guilty, his guilt should be made plainly and manifestly to appear beyond a reasonable doubt.

If you acquit the defendant "we the jury find the defendant John Wallace not guilty.

In 1948 the good old boys of Coweta County, Georgia wanted John Wallace dead. They got their wish two years later. The accidental death of Turner was not enough for them. The death of Sheriff Collier was not enough for them. Their thirst for blood would not be satisfied until John Wallace was dead.

John Wallace was strapped in the white electric chair, known as "Old Sparky at Reidsville State Prison on November 3rd, 1950. His last words was a prayer of forgiveness for the men who sent him there.

It’s not the first time Georgia’s thirst for blood ended in yet another killing. Three years earlier on March 5, 1945 they executed an African American woman named Lena Baker. Her crime was for killing her employer. A white man who had been keeping her a prisoner and using her as a sex slave. It seems in the 1940s Georgia had a hard time distinguishing the difference in murder and manslaughter. It took many years but her family was eventually able to get the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles to acknowledge their error by granting a pardon saying that she should have been tried for manslaughter and not murder. I believe this happened in 2005.