Worth Books - Summary and Analysis of Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption: Based on the Book by Bryan Stevenson

Summary and Analysis of

Just Mercy

A Story of Justice and Redemption

Based on the Book by Bryan Stevenson

Contents

Context

When Just Mercy was published in the fall of 2014, Americas first black president was nearing the midpoint of his second term. Despite President Barack Obamas monumental achievement, the legacy of Americas painful racial past was far from resolved. In 2014as in 2008, when Obama was elected to his first termblacks convicted of capital offenses were significantly more likely to receive the death penalty than white Americans. The same was true for poor Americans without the means to hire a lawyer, who were more likely to wind up in prison to begin with.

The Obama administrations acknowledgment of race- and class-baseddisparities in the criminal justice system marked a new commitment to reforming theinstitution of mass incarceration, but government works slowly. Beginning around2013, the emergence of new activist groups organized by young people, such as BlackLives Matter, reflected the growing sense of frustration with a spate ofinteractions between law enforcement and African Americans that ended in the use ofdeadly force. As a result, many Americans are now aware of the racial and classdisparities that continue to bedevil the criminal justice system. In Just Mercy , veteran defense attorney and criminal justicereformer Bryan Stevenson chronicles just how far the country has comeand how muchfurther it has to go.

Overview

Just Mercy documents thecareer of Bryan Stevenson, the founder of the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) and anindefatigable advocate for the accused. The book is framed around the pivotal caseof Walter McMillian, a black Alabama man falsely accused of murdering an 18-year-oldwhite woman. Despite remarkably flimsy evidence, he was convicted and sentenced todeath. With the help of Stevenson and the EJI, McMillian was eventually exoneratedand freed. Many of Stevensons other clients were not. Threaded through thenarrative are stories about other prisoners Stevenson represented, young (oftenjuvenile) and old, black and white, male and female. The people Stevenson works withhave had incompetent or no representation, little outside support, and fewresourcesfinancial or otherwise. Many are mentally or physically disabled. Often,they can barely read. Most have suffered unimaginable trauma in childhoodand whilein prison. And many are guilty of the crimes of which they were convicted.

Stevensons mission is not to convince people to dismiss their crimes,or the consequences of their actions. Rather, his goal is for people to recognizethe humanity and suffering of those caught up in the criminal justice system, andthe ways our courts and legal system are stacked against the poor, the disabled, andpeople of color, particularly members of the black community. We cannot morallyimprison for life or execute those, Stevenson argues, who never stood a chance.

Summary

Introduction: Higher Ground

In 1983, while interning for the Southern Prisoners Defense Committee (SPDC), a legal aid nonprofit based in Atlanta, Stevenson meets, for the first time, someone on death row. Henry has been housed in the maximum-security Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Center for two years, despite having no access to a lawyer.

The meeting is awkward and intenseand has lasting effects for the young law student. Stevenson, all of 23 years old, is on break from Harvard Law School, where he felt disconnected and put off by the abstract nature of his studies. His task now is far from abstract: He has been sent to inform Henry that the SPDC is looking into his case, andmore importantlythat no execution date will be scheduled during the next year.

An openly hostile guard escorts Stevenson to the visitation room, where, filled with panic about meeting a condemned prisoner, he awaits Henry, who is brought into the room in shackles and handcuffs. After he is unchained, Stevenson greets him with a stammering apology. He is put at ease by the prisoner, who is grateful for SPDCs intervention. Eventually, the two begin to speak about normal things like music and family, turning away from the case to ordinary conversation for three hours.

Like Stevenson, Henry is 23 and black. To the young lawyer, he looks just like any other peera regular person rather than a frightening criminal. He also, for Stevenson, personifies the injustice of the American criminal justice system. In the span of that short meeting, Stevenson is put on the path that leads to his career fighting for the unjustly accused and incarcerated.

This fight will be deeply connected to Stevensons own history. Born and raised in a racially segregated town in coastal Delaware, Stevenson grew up in a town where black people worked hard all the time but never seemed to prosper. Using his own experiences, and the even more traumatic experiences of his parents and grandparents, he draws a line from Americas history of oppressive racism to the current era of mass incarceration.

In its current form, he says, the criminal justice system has created far more problems than it has addressed. He enumerates its many disastrous policies: the abolition of parole in many states; three strikes laws that send nonviolent offenders to prison for decades; child offenders charged as adults; drug addicts prosecuted as criminals; and the great number of poor peoplemany of them blacktried and convicted without decent counsel.

Federal and state governments now dole out approximately $80 billion a year to build and maintain jails and prisons. Stevenson looks at the US justice system and sees a colossal waste of human, financial, and spiritual resources. The true measure of our character is how we treat the poor, the disfavored, the accused, the incarcerated, and the condemned, he writes. This humane reflection sums up Stevensons philosophy, and explains what motivates tireless work.

Chapter One: Mockingbird Players

Walter McMillian is a black Alabama man convicted of murder and on death row. His particular case made national news, and Bryan Stevensons work on McMillians behalf garnered widespread attention for himself and for his organization, the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI).

During his fourth year at the SPDC, where he had returned to work after graduation, Stevenson and a legal aid colleague working in Alabama secured federal funding to represent people on death row, many of whom had no legal representation at all. By this point, the young lawyer had achieved many victories, including stays of execution for a number of men, some only minutes away from being electrocuted. At their meeting on Alabamas death row, Stevenson is struck by McMillians emotional insistence on his innocence. Still, overworked and overwhelmed, Stevenson tries to keep his clients expectations realistic.

A few weeks after he meets with McMillian, Stevenson receives a phone call at his office from Robert E. Lee Key, the judge who had presided over McMillians trial. He tries to warn Stevenson off the case by asserting, alternately, that McMillian was a drug lord and possible member of the Dixie Mafia; that he couldnt appoint a lawyer to represent McMillian who wasnt a member of the Alabama bar (Stevenson was); and that McMillian wasnt actually indigent because he had drug money stashed all over Monroe County. All of the judges objections were false or hollow, and Stevenson had agreed to serve as McMillians lawyer voluntarilyhe wasnt seeking official appointment. But this disingenuous exchange provided an illuminating (and depressing) glimpse at the massive resistance Stevenson would encounter during his work with McMillian, and throughout his career.