- Prejean telephones Farmer in November 1983. He agrees to help, and she mails him the papers.
- Pat is having trouble sleeping and is generally upset because he's going to be executed unless the Pardon Board stops the execution.
- Millard sees lots of things that the other attorney did wrong, but the justice system doesn't let you go back and point out such problems. Which doesn't seem very fair, especially since someone's life is at stake.
- Federal courts used to oversee and correct state capital errors, but they stopped doing that in 1976, so now, according to Prejean, it's pretty much anything goes as far as states killing their citizens.
- Millard says that poor defendants get poor representation. For instance, Pat's attorney didn't bring anyone to the stand to speak for Pat's life at sentencing.
- Millard says that Pat would have not been sentenced to death if he had killed black people.
- He says the death penalty is applied randomly and unjustly.
- Millard meets with Pat and Sister Prejean, and they try to figure out some way to prevent Pat from being executed.
- Millard says that the judge's instructions were wrong: these instructions indicated that it didn't matter who pulled the trigger—but it should matter when a death sentence is involved.
- All the same, it doesn't matter anymore, since Pat's attorney didn't bring it up at trial. So no the courts won't consider it.
- Basically, the attorney Pat had was awful, but that won't matter to anyone in the judicial process. They'll still execute Pat.
- Millard hopes that the new governor, Edwin Edwards, who has seemed to have qualms about the death penalty, might give Pat a pardon.
- So Millard and Prejean get Bishop Ott and others to agree to go plead for Pat's life with Governor Edwards.
- Prejean also gets Archbishop Hannen to agree to plead for Pat's life, though he's been pro-death penalty before. His position is somewhat confusing.
- They all meet with the governor, and he does the politician thing where he vacillates and promises nothing.
- Governor Edwards seems to believe that the law is the law, and he has to follow it—so he can't pardon against the will of the people.
- Prejean is not impressed with this reasoning. She says he's tried to remove himself from the death-penalty process; he doesn't like it and doesn't want to deal with it, she says.
- Edwards is kind of cowardly… but that's a politician for you.
- Anyway, Millard knows they're in trouble. The Pardon Board is the last chance.
- Millard asks Prejean to review the trial transcripts. She does and finds there are lots of discrepancies. For example, no one ever matched the semen in Loretta's body to Pat's; they don't really know who raped her, Pat or Eddie.
- Eddie's testimony doesn't really make sense, either.
- None of it matters, though. Evidence-checking time is over.
- Millard decides Pat shouldn't attend the Pardon Board hearing. Prejean goes along with that, though she'll regret it.
- Millard and Prejean meet with Howard Marcellus, the chairman of the Board. He seems really open to their concerns. They're excited.
- Spoiler: he's not going to pardon Pat. He's just a politician who tells everyone what they want to hear. In fact, he later serves time in prison for taking bribes to influence the outcome of Pardon Board hearings.
- Prejean doesn't know any of this yet, so she prepares herself to speak to the Pardon Board as best she can.
- At the hearing, Millard and Prejean make their case. They say that Pat had an inadequate defense, and that he is remorseful.
- The D.A. says that Pat has had a lengthy and thorough trial. Lloyd LeBlanc says his son is dead and that he doubts that Pat, who killed him, can be rehabilitated.
- After the hearing, Lloyd LeBlanc confronts Prejean and asks how she can defend Pat. He also asks why she didn't reach out to the victims' families.
- Prejean feels that she has really fouled up. She spends time talking to LeBlanc, who tells her that Pat was a violent, obscene person.
- Prejean seems a little surprised by this. She decides to contact LeBlanc after the hearing.
- The Pardon Board votes against acquittal four to one. Those who vote to convict do not give reasons.
- After the hearing, Prejean calls Lloyd LeBlanc, who asks if she's a Communist. She says no.
- People have said she is.
- This is the 1980s, folks: Communists were thought to be everything bad. It's like saying, "Are you a bug-eyed monster who tortures cats?"
- Prejean manages to convince LeBlanc that she is not a Communist and has no bug-eyes.
- Prejean also calls the nuns at her community to prepare for Pat's death. He is going to be buried in the nuns' burial plot.