Ten-year-old Adrian Hall, a Black boy, was shot and killed inside his family home in Barrow County, Georgia, on January 7, 1990. The shooting followed a history of alcohol-fueled domestic violence; that day his father, Dennis Charles Hall, had been drinking and became angry after Adrian’s toy interfered with the television. Dennis struck Adrian, an argument with his wife followed, and he found and loaded a shotgun the family had tried to hide.

Adrian begged for his life but was shot in the chest at close range in front of his mother, two sisters, and neighbors. Police had been called to the household multiple times before the killing for Dennis Hall’s abusive behavior. He was arrested, initially told police he acted in self-defense and later called the shooting an accident. He was convicted of murder, two counts of cruelty to children, and discharging a firearm near a public street, and sentenced to death in August 1990; that sentence was later commuted to life in prison.