One day a riot erupts between the two groups when a firebomb is thrown at the feet of Stump Sisson, the Klan’s Grand Dragon. Black protesters and Klan members regularly gather outside the courthouse. Jake sends his wife and daughter away to stay with family until the trial ends. One night dynamite is placed beneath Jake’s bedroom window, and it’s only thanks to an anonymous tip that Ozzie is able to warn Jake in time. The Ku Klux Klan incorporates a new chapter in Ford County to deal with those involved in Carl Lee’s defense. The threats eventually escalate into violence as the trial progresses. A group of black community leaders raises money for Carl Lee’s defense and urges him to hire attorneys from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) instead Carl Lee decides to trust Jake and stick with him.Įarly on, Jake and his family begin receiving threatening phone calls from white community members who don’t want to see Carl Lee acquitted.

Jake also consults with a divorce attorney named Harry Rex Vonner and hires a University of Mississippi law student named Ellen Roark. As the case progresses, Jake confers frequently with his mentor, a wealthy and former (that is, disbarred) lawyer named Lucien Wilbanks. Despite the low odds of winning the case, Jake is ambitious and hungry for the publicity the trial will bring. Thirty-two-year-old Jake Brigance, a white attorney practicing out of a solo firm in the small town of Clanton, agrees to represent Carl Lee. Days later, as the alleged rapists are leaving a courtroom, Carl Lee Hailey, Tonya’s father, bursts from a janitor’s closet and kills the men with an illegally obtained M-16 rifle. Sheriff Ozzie Walls, the first and only black sheriff in Ford County, arrests the two men after they are overheard in a bar bragging about the crime. They throw her off a bridge, thinking the fall will kill her, but Tonya survives.

The novel begins when two white men, Billy Ray Cobb and Pete Willard, abduct and rape a ten-year old black girl named Tonya Hailey.

Novel a time to kill