The Reckoning

On Christmas day, Florry, Joel, and Stella go to visit Liza at the Mississippi state hospital where she has spent the last seven months. They have never received a letter from her, and Pete has told them nothing about her diagnosis or treatment.

At the hospital, they are told by Doctor Hilsabeck that Pete, as Liza’s court-ordered guardian, telephoned the hospital the previous day and instructed that Joel and Stella were not to be allowed to see her. All that the doctor can tell them is that Liza is doing better. None of them can understand why Pete would prevent them from seeing Liza. They speculate that there is nothing even wrong with Liza, and that Pete shipped her off to the hospital because he was angry with her.

On Monday, January 6, Ernie Dowdell, the janitor at the courthouse opens the building and turns on the heat. This is to be the biggest trial Ernie can ever remember. He can hardly believe that a white man of Pete Banning’s wealth and stature is going on trial. The Black residents of the town assumed Pete would buy his way out of it. The case is even more compelling to Ernie because no one has found a Black person to serve as a scapegoat for the crime.

Judge Oswalt arrives, followed soon after by Pete’s lawyer, John Wilbanks. The courtroom fills with spectators—white people in the courtroom proper and Black people in the balcony. Pete appears indifferent to the trial. Wilbanks informs the judge that he has advised his client to plead temporary insanity, but that Pete has refused. Pete confirms for the record that he was completely sane at the time of the murder.

The trial continues the following day, January 7, with opening arguments, followed by witnesses. Pastor Bell’s wife Jackie testifies that she heard three gunshots and found her husband dead in his office. She is followed by Hop Perdue, who saw Pete leave the church with the gun in his hand.

The next witness for the state is a chancery clerk who testifies that Pete Banning transferred his land to his children weeks before the murder, indicating that he intended to protect the land from being seized by the victim’s family in a wrongful death suit. Testimony from other witnesses confirms that Pete was in possession of the gun that killed Pastor Bell.

Pete still refuses to take the stand to defend himself or explain his motive. Wilbanks’s only witness is Major Anthony Rusconi, who testifies to the horror of the prison camps and to Pete’s heroism in the Philippines. One of Pete's former comrades, Clay Wampler, comes to Clanton to support Pete, but is not allowed to testify.

In closing arguments, the prosecutor tells the jury that, by law, the only verdict they can reach is first-degree murder and the death penalty. Wilbanks argues that life in prison is a legitimate sentence within the law and the death penalty serves no purpose except to increase the suffering of Pete’s family. He concludes that to oppose the death penalty will put a stain on the consciences of every member of the jury.

The jury debates briefly as to whether capital punishment is warranted or even moral, but in the end, they agree unanimously on the death penalty. Pete doesn’t even flinch when the verdict is read out in the courtroom: death by electrocution.

A reporter from the Memphis Press-Scimitar interviews Clay Wampler and publishes a story about the war in the Philippines and Pete’s role as an escaped prisoner of war and the leader of a resistance group of commandos sniping at the Japanese.

In 1940, the state of Mississippi switched from hanging as the official method of capital punishment to electrocution. The state employed a mobile electric chair called “Old Sparky” that could be easily moved from place to place. The executioner in charge of the chair is Jimmy Thompson, an ex-con, ex-carny, and a heavy drinker. He is also technically a murderer, but was excused on the grounds that the other man had insulted Jimmy's mother. Jimmy likes to turn executions into spectacles. His executions vary from quick and apparently merciful, to long drawn-out horrors.

Days before the execution, Pete is allowed to visit Liza at the hospital. She looks old and gaunt. She asks Pete if he still loves her and if he forgives her. He answers that he has never stopped loving her, but he can’t forgive her.

The day of the execution, the governor of Mississippi, Fielding Wright, offers to commute Pete’s sentence to life in prison if Pete will confess why he killed Pastor Bell. Pete refuses.

Pete walks from the jail to the courthouse with his head held high, showing the gathered crowd that he has no regrets and no fear of death. The electric chair has been set up in the courthouse. Jimmy Thompson secures Pete into Old Sparky and affixes the electrodes. Judge Oswalt reads out the execution order.

The execution itself is gruesome. Pete screams at the first jolt, which does not kill him. The second shock ends his life. The witnesses are horrified and deeply traumatized by the experience, but Jimmy Thompson is pleased that the execution went so smoothly.

Pete is buried the next day in the family cemetery.