John Grisham was born in 1955 in Jonesboro, Arkansas, but grew up in Mississippi, graduated from the University of Mississippi School of Law in 1981, and served in the Mississippi House of Representatives from 1983 to 1990. In addition to writing, he also serves on the board of the Innocence Project, dedicated to identifying and freeing those who have been wrongfully convicted. His work on the Innocence Project confirms his opposition to the death penalty, since he is aware of the appalling number of wrongful convictions, particularly of Black men, that slip through the US justice system.

While serving in the House of Representatives, Grisham heard an anecdote about a prominent man from a small town in Mississippi who killed another equally prominent man, apparently in cold blood. The killer never offered a reason for the murder, even when the state governor offered to change his sentence from death to life in prison if he would only explain his motive. The man refused and was hanged the next day. Grisham acknowledges that the story as he heard it might have been fiction from beginning to end, but it struck him strongly enough that he later built his own story around it.