Injustice In Just Mercy By Bryan Stevenson

Bryan Stevenson was a lawyer based out of Montgomery, Alabama. He helped many of these people get an honest, fair sentence. Through the publication of his book, he has educated many on the reality of our prison systems in America. He shares his firsthand accounts of children being charged as adults, innocent men being charged for crimes they had clearly not had any involvement with, and women living in poverty being charged with murder for burying their stillborn children. All of these cases had one thing in common: poverty.

In the novel, Just Mercy, by Bryan Stevenson, it is extremely apparent that there is a link between poverty, wealth, injustice, and justice. This book incorporates a strong theme of poverty and how it relates to justice, as well as injustice. Furthermore, it very apparently works to explain and provide examples of problems within the justice system, and the urgency that these be corrected. One major problem being poverty in relation to obtaining justice. This being said, throughout my personal reading of the book, I have come to agree with Stevenson's statement, "the opposite of poverty is not wealth; the opposite of poverty is justice" (Stevenson 18).

“Just Mercy” was written to enlighten society of the corruption in a system that is meant to bring justice. Sadly, it isn’t applied to many cases. The idea behind our legal justice system sounds great on paper, but the way it is executed is sometimes lacking. Every day people are sentenced without solid evidence because of the color of their skin, social status, age, or even mental capabilities. These people barely received legal aid or representation in court. But while some people may be found wrongly guilty, others may be found wrongly innocent. People are found innocent without solid evidence because of the color of their skin, social status, age, or even mental capabilities. Many of these injustices lead back to racism. The author of

Stevenson also writes about teenagers, including Charlie, who are sentenced to life as adults and serve in horrible conditions. Charlie was 14 and tried as an adult for capital murder, and the man he killed had just beaten Charlie’s mother unconscious. The case of Charlie introduces Stevenson to mercy in the fact that an elderly white couple hears Stevenson speak at church and they want to help Charlie by paying for his GED and college education. The story of misrepresented and unfairly judged people continues and so does the story of Walter McMillan. The continued evolution of evidence and the overwhelming number of witnesses who provide McMillan with an iron clad alibi make you wonder how on earth he could have ever been found guilty and in the end, with tremendous effort and support from Stevenson and his team, McMillan is released and the DA drops all charges against him. The question I kept asking is how many men and women are in jail today because of bias and poor representation? Bryan Stevenson’s story is inspiring and it should challenge us to get closer to difficult subjects before we cast judgment.

Stevenson would eventually have come to represent a Walter McMillan, who was accused and charged with the murder of a white woman. A drug-addicted friend of one of McMillan’s female extramarital partners wrongly accused McMillan of the murder after being caught in his

In Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson, readers see an inside look into the criminal justice system. Stevenson uses some of his cases to show the readers what is really going on behind cell doors. Stevenson shows his readers the story behind the people in the jumpsuits. I believe that the execution of prisoners accused of serious crimes is not a form of genocide. Genocide is the deliberate, systematic extermination of an entire people. The killing of prisoners is not killing an entire group of people based on religion, gender, or some other characteristic.

Just Mercy is about a lawyer fighting for the innocent people who are wrongfully accused and put on death row. Bryan Stevenson, the author of the book talks a lot about mass incarceration in the United States. The extreme punishment that the unfortunate face based on their race, social class, and other factors is an act of inhumanity. This book is basically about the injustice in the American criminal justice system. I am startled about what I have learned throughout his book. My firm believe is that these kind of obstacles are not discussed so it gets even worse. People are unaware of what is happening or better still some are not ready to face the reality that such actions are taking place.

Just Mercy is a book about a lawyer, Bryan Stevenson, that works as an attorney to try and defend those individuals that were wrongly convicted. The victims that he’s working for are all on death row for either something they didn’t do or something they had no wrong intentions on when they did it. Stevenson tried to use mercy in the courts to try and make the justice system dismiss his clients’ cases.

In today’s society and in the past, minorities are treated differently than everyone else. Racial discrimination is a plague sweeping across the nation causing mass outcries from people everywhere. Minorities struggle each and every day due to a wide variety of race based hate and opinions. These people deal with racial discrimination on a multitude of scales ranging from racism and the opinion of others to police acting more violently towards them. Police will escalate minor situations, unnecessarily, just because the suspect is an African American. One of the more oppressing matters that have to do with racial discrimination is mass incarceration and the majority of the people in jails are people of the minority races.

In Bryan Stevenson’s book “Just Mercy” and Stephen King’s movie “Shawshank Redemption”, injustice is brought up frequently. Injust is shown through racism, money, and mental illnesses. Bryan and Stephen use great examples and details to explain how injustice is obviously in today’s court systems.

In any justice system ran by man, the flaw with the system is the judgement. Equality is an utopian theme. It is searched for by everyone, but has yet to be found. What we have in America is a system that has produced egregious patterns in the individuals of whom it convicts. The African American community has been the party that has been so critically effected. Bryan Stevenson, author of “Just Mercy,” a critically acclaimed novel about the injustices committed against the African American community, has spent his life fighting for change. He convinces the readers that the major flown the United States judicial system is the death penalty. He communicates his point across by sharing countless stories and anecdotes. Through these appeals, he continually shows the failures in the system. Through the end of his work, the reader can here Stevenson pleading that the American justice system needs to be rebuilt from the ground up.

In the beginning of 1970’s the prison population was 300,000 people today is has increased to 2.3 million people behind bars making America the first country to have the largest rising prison population in the world. It takes a extremely strong, patient and humble soul to save the many lives of those who have been incarcerated for petty crimes, and given unreasonable sentences as a result. Bryan Stevenson, an inspiring, brilliant and influential attorney, is an epitome of mercy and justice as he describes the lives affected by America’s corrupted prison system. As an broken individual saving broken lives it is exceedingly significant for Stevenson to remember the intelligent words from his Grandmother as she often told Stevenson, “You can’t understand most of the important things from a distance, Bryan. You have to get close” (14). Stevenson gets close to these heartbreaking issues by presenting himself as a Stonecatcher for the numerous individuals who have been abandoned because of poverty, mental disabilities, as well as abandoned by society.

As I began my reading of Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson, I quickly found myself surrounded by a variety of themes and historic as well as current day issues. Subjects which I’ve ignored despite their emphasis in our news suddenly entered my focus. As I explored ideas from different perspectives both on my own and in discussion with my peers, a new depth has been brought to light. In just the first 3rd of the book, we’ve seen countless injustices.

Bryan Stevenson memoir “Just Mercy” is a story of Justice and redemption, Bryan Stevenson is a young, gifted, dedicated attorney defending the poor, the wrongly condemned, and those trapped in our criminal justice system. In Just Mercy, Bryan recounts some of the cases he took and transformed not just his but our understanding of mercy and justice. Just Mercy revealed how harsh our criminal justice system can be towards the poor,minorities, and our youth. Stevenson memoir raise the question and concern “Is Justice really being served.” The purpose of the criminal justice system is to punish those who committed a crime and to protect the innocent, the system failed to do so in the cases Stevenson reflect on in his memoir. Unfortunately, Juveniles are being tried and giving life sentences without the possibility of parole. Minors are not given similar rights as adults because of their inability to make adult decisions,so why should children be treated and tried as adults? Mentally, physically, and emotionally children can not even bare serving time with adult criminals. Many Young children are being Subjected to violence and poverty which promote them into performing some type of violent act. Instead of helping/ providing some type of guidance, these kids are being thrown into the system to be abused physically,sexually, and mentally . Bryan Stevenson explore several cases of young adolescent’s sentence to life in prison to show us how cruel and unusual our Justice system can

Growing up, children are told stories of how America is the greatest country in the world and the guarantee that citizen’s safety is the top priority. Children are told that cops save the day and make sure all the bad people will go to prison and never harm anyone else ever again. Unfortunately, the criminal system is not so black and white like I grew up to believe in. I remember when I first read How to Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, and I was horrified by the realization of how immensely racist and cruel society was at one point. In my naive mind, I thought that society is much better now and the criminal system is full of justice and fairness. Just Mercy demonstrates, as powerfully as any book on criminal justice that I’ve ever read, the extent to which brutality, unfairness, and racial bias continue to infect criminal law in the United States. At the same time that Stevenson tells a story of deep-seated and widespread injustice, he also recounts instances of human compassion, understanding, mercy, and justice that offer hope. Reading this book has opened my eyes to the unfairness that I was not paying enough attention to. My knowledge and awareness has grown enormously due to Stevenson's moving stories of the people wrongly put on death row.