About
Just Mercy is written from the perspective of author Bryan Stevenson. In the introduction of the book, Stevenson writes about what influenced him to become a lawyer representing misunderstood prisoners. At the age of twenty-three, Stevenson found himself with the nerve-racking task of meeting prisoners on death row. He did not know the details involving capital punishment or the criminal justice system yet. Stevenson had a hard time deciding what to do in life until he met Henry, a condemned prisoner on death row. Having never visited a condemned prisoner before, especially one on death row, Stevenson was terrified. He had made all the assumptions a normal person would about a prisoner on death row however, Henry proved those assumptions wrong. Henry was optimistic and grateful for their conversation, which helped Stevenson’s “understanding of human potential, redemption, and hopefulness” (Stevenson 12). Early in Stevenson’s career, he got to experience the true injustice behind the system. He wrote countless stories on prisoners who had to deal with mental illness, abuse, neglect, rape, etc.
In between these tragic stories, most of Just Mercy covers Walter McMillian’s case. McMillian was a man who was wrongfully convicted and sent to death row in 1987. He was awaiting trial and was still sent to death row with no evidence backing his so-called crime. Stevenson expressed how frustrating McMillian’s case was because of the recurring injustice in the system. Throughout the book, Stevenson provides various pieces of evidence explaining how mass incarceration’s prominence, as well as how extreme punishment in America is created out of fear. Stevenson informs the reader on how people are taught to fear those addressed as criminals before knowing who is guilty or not. People like McMillian’s prosecutors for putting an innocent man on death row for six years. Stevenson believes that because of this fear, people are unable to see humility in prisoners like Walter McMillian and many more. This led to Stevenson’s conclusion that “Each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve ever done” (Stevenson 17-18) |