dailyBooks - Just Mercy--A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson | Conversation Starters

Conversation Starters

for

Bryan Stevensons

Just Mercy

By dailyBooks

Please Note: This is an unofficial conversation starters guide. If you have not yet read the original work, please do so first.

Copyright 2015 by dailyBooks.All Rights Reserved.

First Published in the United States of America 2015

We hope you enjoy this complementary guide from dailyBooks . We aim to provide quality, thought provoking material to assistin your discovery and discussions on some of todays favorite books.

Disclaimer / Terms of Use: Product names, logos, brands, and other trademarks featured or referred to within this publication are the property of their respective trademark holders and are not affiliated with dailyBooks. The publisher and author make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of these contents and disclaim all warranties such as warranties of fitness for a particular purpose. This guide is unofficial and unauthorized. It is not authorized, approved, licensed, or endorsed by the original book's author or publisher and any of their licensees or affiliates.

No part of this publication may be reproduced or retransmitted, electronic or mechanical, without the written permission of the publisher.

Tips for Using dailyBooks Conversation Starters:

EVERY GOOD BOOK CONTAINS A WORLD FAR DEEPER THAN the surface of its pages. The characters and their world come alive through the words on the pages, yet the characters and its world still live on. Questions herein are designed to bring us beneath the surface of the page and invite us into the world that lives on. These questions can be used to:

• Foster a deeper understanding of the book
• Promote an atmosphere of discussion for groups
• Assist in the study of the book, either individually or corporately
• Explore unseen realms of the book as never seen before

About Us:

THROUGH YEARS OF EXPERIENCE AND FIELD EXPERTISE, from newspaper featured book clubs to local library chapters, dailyBooks can bring your book discussion to life. Host your book party as we discuss some of todays most widely read books.

Introducing Just Mercy

J UST MERCY IS BRYAN STEVENSONS JOURNEY THROUGH the morass and injustices of the American justice system. A lawyer who quickly became interested in civil rights, Stevenson decided to join the SPDC, an organization whose mission was to assist the prisoners on death row in the American South. Gradually, Stevenson finds himself sucked into the problems of his clients and begins to work full time on cases in which he considers the punishments were harsh and disproportionate with the crime.

The book follows the story of Walter McMillian, an innocent man who was framed for the murder of a white girl because he had dared to have an affair with another white woman. Walter spent six years on death row for a crime he didnt commit and was finally released through the efforts of Stevenson and his team. During this time, Stevenson uncovered not just incompetency in the law enforcement and legal system, but blatant corruption, racism, and unwillingness to find the truth. Walter received a minuscule amount of compensation for his troubles and ended his days with dementia, diagnosed to have been brought on by the trauma he had undergone during his incarceration.

Though Walters story takes primacy in the book, it is interspersed with the stories of other victims of the justice system. Through these cases, Stevenson shows how the system was based on racism, sexism, and poverty. One of the things Stevenson has been fighting against is the execution of minors, something that only a handful of countries in the world practice, the US being one of them. The country has hundreds of children on death row, and others have spent decades in prison with no hope of parole or release for minor crimes. Some of the children were innocent of the crimes of which they had been accused.

Stevenson also talks about women who gave birth to stillborn children and found themselves in prison for decades. There have been witch hunts for bad mothers who have tried to hide their pregnancies for fear of social censure and have then given birth to stillbirth children. Many of these women also had no access to abortions, prenatal care, and general health care. Pregnancy-related mental illnesses such as postpartum depression were not discussed or acknowledged in the cases of women who had harmed their children. All this increased the chances of women being targeted unfairly in order to fill the prisons.

Stevenson also discusses how there is little to no help for people suffering from mental illnesses and drug abuse. People who need help are thrown into prison for years instead of receiving the help that would help them become productive members of the society again.

The prison industry that has risen up has made incarceration a business and this business model requires that more and more people be put behind bars for silly to non-existent reasons. The focus of this kind of economy-driven justice system means that justice is not served either for the victim or the perpetrator. Instead, a whole new generation of criminals is being created by poverty, racism, gender inequality, and other social injustices.

Introducing the Author

B RYAN STEVENSON IS AN AMERICAN LAWYER WHO FIGHTS against racism, sexism, ineptitude, and deliberate systemic abuse of incarcerated people in the justice system. Born black in Delaware during the Jim Crow era, Stevenson firsthand saw how the concepts of crime and punishment were applied differently to people from different social strata.