Marsha Colbey

Marsha Colbey was convicted of capital murder in Arkansas in connection with the death of her newborn child. The state's case relied heavily on disputed forensic testimony claiming the infant was born alive, which Marsha and her defenders categorically rejected, insisting the child was stillborn. This conviction placed her on death row and became a central example in Stevenson's critique of unreliable expert testimony in capital cases.

Stevenson takes on Marsha's case as part of EJI's expansion beyond Alabama, motivated by the belief that prosecutorial overreach and wrongful capital sentences require a national response. Her situation represents the organization's core mission: a woman condemned on fragile forensic evidence, without adequate original defense, whose account of her child's death had not been fairly examined. Her case illustrates that EJI's moral obligations extend beyond state boundaries.

Marsha ultimately obtains legal relief after Stevenson introduces credible, independent medical evidence showing the infant bore signs consistent with stillbirth, directly contradicting the prosecution's forensic witness. This new testimony dismantles the evidentiary basis of her conviction and compels the court to act. Her story concludes not with simple triumph but with vindication—the system, with reluctance, acknowledges her long-standing insistence.

Disputed forensic testimony claiming the baby was born alive constitutes almost the entirety of the state's case against Marsha. Stevenson utilizes her story to demonstrate how courts can grant unwarranted authority to expert witnesses, permitting questionable science to override a mother's account of loss and transform private grief into a capital charge. Her case emerges as one of the book's sharpest critiques of the myth of objective, evidence-based justice.

Stevenson serves as Marsha's attorney, investigator, and witness to her humanity, performing thorough legal work that her original defense counsel failed to provide. Their relationship is professional yet deeply ethical; Stevenson does not emphasize personal closeness, but the care evident in his advocacy—tracking down independent medical experts, challenging the prosecution's narrative—is clear and ultimately saves her life.

Trina Garbo is another woman whose case Stevenson highlights as a thematic parallel to Marsha's. Both women are poor, and their reproductive experiences were criminalized by the state, with prosecutors relying on questionable science rather than solid evidence. Examining their cases together sharpens Stevenson's argument regarding the gendered dimensions of capital punishment and the justice system's tendency to view poverty and motherhood as indicators of moral failure.

No direct quotes from Marsha Colbey are recorded in Just Mercy. Stevenson narrates her case entirely through his own voice as her advocate, a deliberate narrative choice that raises questions about power and agency—a victim of injustice rendered visible only through the lawyer who fights for her, never fully in her own words.

Marsha and Walter McMillian are structurally parallel: both were condemned on contested evidence—forensic testimony in her case, false witness testimony in his—and both required Stevenson to confront deep institutional resistance rather than merely present new facts. Their stories reinforce EJI's central argument that the system routinely prioritizes finality over truth, suggesting that wrongful capital convictions are a systemic pattern rather than isolated incidents.