- John Craft, who is serving as local counsel for Robert Willie, is going to represent him at the Pardon Board hearing.
- Robert wants to talk about how his execution is politically motivated. It was… but bringing that up at the Parole Board hearing isn't going to help Robert at all, Craft says.
- Prejean is dreading the Pardon Board hearing, which she figures will go as badly as it did last time.
- Prejean has heard that the board is very political and tries to protect the governor in death penalty cases.
- Protecting the governor here seems to mean not pardoning people so that he doesn't have to worry about it.
- Robert is being executed in part for political reasons.
- Marion Farmer, the prosecutor, had been criticized for not seeking the death penalty in an earlier case, so during the campaign, he promised to get the death penalty for Robert.
- Prejean imagines Faith coming back from the dead and saying that she doesn't want revenge, that she believes in love, and that she thinks Robert shouldn't be killed.
- But Prejean can also imagine Faith coming back and saying that an angry God wanted revenge.
- Vernon and Elizabeth are likely to hear the latter speech.
- Prejean goes to visit Robert. He reads her the statement he's going to give the Pardon Board. It talks about the politics in his case, and about how he had an inadequate defense.
- Robert also says that the D.A. threatened to hold his mother and stepfather in prison for helping him evade arrest unless he confessed. They made his mother do six months in jail, anyway, which seems kind of awful. Would even the Harveys want Robert's mom to serve time in prison like that?
- Robert's mother has had a rotten life—and with her son about to be executed, it's not getting any better.
- Robert agrees to scratch out the discussion of politics from his statement. He also agrees to think about letting his mom come to the Pardon Board hearing. Prejean says she knows it will be hard for his mom, but she may want to feel like she's done all she could.
- Prejean goes to the pardon hearing and tries to comfort Elizabeth, Robert's mother, who is a mess.
- Vernon is there; she says hello to him. He seems worried that there are more black people than white people on the Pardon Board.
- Prejean tells Vernon that she doesn't think the fact that there are black people on the board will matter in terms of Robert getting off. And (spoiler) it doesn't: the Parole Board pretty much doesn't let anybody off.
- John Craft says that the trial was unjust. Elizabeth, Robert's mother tries to speak and dissolves in tears.
- Robert reads his statement.
- Then Prejean speaks and tries to convince the Parole Board that execution is wrong. She also says that the Board members need to take personal responsibility for the decision to execute.
- Marcellus, the head of the Board, doesn't like that. He says that they just make a recommendation to the governor; they're not responsible for the death.
- Prejean says, uh-uh, nice try.
- The Board members are fidgety, but their guilt isn't going to make them go against the governor's wishes.
- Marion Farmer, the prosecutor, says that Robert has had a trial and, after all, he committed a horrible crime, so it's time to execute him.
- Vernon and Elizabeth Harvey speak. Vernon cries. Elizabeth says the only way to stop Robert from killing again is to execute him.
- The Pardon Board decides quickly to support execution.
- Robert thinks he had a chance before Elizabeth spoke; Prejean knows he's kidding himself.
- The Harveys leave before Prejean can speak to them.
- The narrative leaps ahead to a conversation between Prejean and Marsellus, the head of the Board, in 1991.
- Marsellus had been convicted of accepting bribes and had served time in prison. He says he was supposed to be a team player on the Board, and that he put that above his conscience.
- Marsellus witnessed the execution of Tim Baldwin, who he thinks was probably innocent.
- Baldwin's girlfriend, who Marsellus thinks lied under oath, was let out of prison by the Pardon Board because she'd struck a deal with the governor. She may have actually been the one who committed the crime.
- Marsellus says that Edwards knew Baldwin was innocent, even though Edwards had told Prejean otherwise.
- Marsellus says that bribes for pardons eventually made their way to the governor one way or the other.
- Marsellus feels horribly guilty about the part he played in the system, whether it was convicting innocent people or letting guilty ones who paid get a pardon.