Brutus Howell

Age

46 years old (1935) 71 years old (1960)

Brutus Howell is a character in the novel The Green Mile. He is a guard on death row at Cold Mountain Penitentiary and second in command there. He is loyal to Paul Edgecomb and hates Percy Wetmore even more than Paul. Despite his nickname and size, Brutus rarely hurts inmates and is quite kind-hearted, though his temper is rather quick-tempered.

However, Brutus cannot stand disrespect and becomes enraged when Percy mistreats inmates. This is shown several times throughout the film, such as when Percy degrades Bitterbuck's body, when he says that the Green Mile is just "a bucket of piss to drown rats in" (thus referring to the inmates as "rats"), and when Percy botches Del's execution. After Percy does the latter, Brutus loses his temper and punches Percy, but is stopped by Paul. He was one of the guards who attends John Coffey's execution. In the book, he died 25 years later in 1960 of a sudden heart attack while eating a fish sandwich and watching wrestling on television.