A Time to Kill

At the Springdale Church, the national NAACP director presents Reverend Agee with a $5,000 check payable to the Carl Lee Hailey Legal Defense Fund in front of reporters—and pledges to raise more. Agee and the NAACP director talk for nearly an hour, condemning racism and citing crime statistics. When Jake reads about the defense fund, he is worried that Carl Lee will use it to hire a group of NAACP lawyers, “The Death Squad,” as they are known: “a team of six capital murder specialists who toured the South defending blacks of heinous and notorious crimes” (219).

Carl Lee transfers to a mental hospital in Whitfield, three hours away, to undergo his psychiatric evaluation.

Four weeks before the trial, reporters fill every hotel in Clanton. The citizens have grown tired of them and their views—i.e., that the locals are “backward, redneck, and racist” (225).

At the change-of-venue hearing, Jake argues that the trial should be moved as far away as possible to prevent local bias from influencing the jurors. He calls the divorce attorney Harry Rex Vonner to testify as to how he learned about the rape. Harry Rex cites the television news and newspapers; he also overheard cops in a local restaurant describing how the rapists urinated on Tonya, a detail Jake had not heard.