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"Circumstantial Evidence", the award-winning, true crime novel by former Washington Post reporter, Pete Earley, is slated for production as a feature film.

Ruckus Media Group, a Chicago-based production company, optioned "Circumstantial Evidence", winner of the 16th Robert F. Kennedy Book Award and the 1995 Edgar  Award for best fact crime book, with Ron Sapienza attached to produce.

"Circumstantial Evidence" recounts the story of Walter “Johnny D.” McMillian, a black man with no criminal record, who was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death for the murder of a young white college woman. As McMillian sat on Alabama’s death row, a young black lawyer named Bryan Stevenson took up his own investigation into the murder. Finding a trial tainted by procedural mistakes, conflicting eyewitness accounts, and outright perjury, Stevenson was determined to uncover the truth—even if it meant raising the stakes with the risky decision to speed up the death penalty process!

Mr. Sapienza and Mr. Earley have worked closely to ensure that both parties were happy with the accurate portrayal of characters and events, as well as the overall point of view and direction of the screenplay. “During the past six months, I have been impressed with not only the evolution of this project but with the talented people behind it” said Earley.

Bryan Stevenson, a Harvard-trained attorney and the protagonist of this story, was contacted several months ago by Sapienza and he has since worked generously with the production company to offer first-hand, behind the scene accounts of these highly charged events. “I was excited to learn that there is renewed interest in this story which helps to shine a light on the issues of equal justice and the death penalty in America.” Stevenson said.

Stevenson is currently the Executive Director of the Equal Justice Initiative in Alabama and Professor of Clinical Law at New York School of Law. “It has been my experience that mainstream Hollywood tends to shy away from these issues, or worse yet, they water them down to deliver a product or message they assume is more comfortable for the American viewing public. I can appreciate their position, but the average moviegoer is smarter than that and ready for anything— even the truth. I think they crave it!”

The most glaringly ironic fact is that this true story takes place in Monroeville, Alabama, the celebrated hometown of Harper Lee and inspiration for "To Kill a Mockingbird", her Pulitzer Prize­winning novel about truth, justice, and human dignity. To this day, locals insist that the fictitious town of Maycomb is a thinly veiled portrait of Monroeville—warts and all!

No stranger to the world of film, Earley’s "Family of Spies", the fact-based story of John A. Walker Jr., a Navy chief petty officer who sold secrets to the Soviets in 1967, was adapted for the small screen, starring Powers Booth and Leslie Ann Warren.

Pete Earley is the author of seven books including the critically acclaimed, The Hot House: Life Inside Leavenworth Prison and Super Casino: Inside The New Las Vegas. His next book, Crazy: A Father’s Search Through America’s Mental Health Madness, chronicling his son’s personal struggle with mental illness and his own observations during a year-long investigation inside the Miami-Dade County jail, is due out in 2006.