Rhetorical Devices In Just Mercy

America is supposed to be the land of the free, but in reality does America give freedom to all? Not if your poor, black, or disabled. In Just Mercy, Bryan Stevenson, who is a lawyer, writes about the harsh realities of the justice system in the United States. He illustrates his encounter with several prisoners, who were wrongly defended based off of race, disability, and class. The main story follows an innocent man put on death row, Walter McMillian.

The author of Just Mercy, Bryan Stevenson, has a strong background with poverty and institutions that are known to fuel the marginalization of minorities. Stevenson recalls, “I grew up in a country settlement where some people lived in tiny shacks; families without indoor plumbing had to use outhouses. The black people around me were strong and determined but marginalized and excluded” (Stevenson pg. 13). The syllable of the syllable. Stevenson is the perfect candidate to spread information on not only the rapidly growing poverty issue in the United States, but also the disproportionate amount of minority groups being incarcerated on almost non-convictable charges.

Bryan Stevenson’s book Just Mercy is a tale of justice and injustice alike. It describes his life and some of the more prominent cases he worked on as a lawyer, seeking justice for the wrongly convicted. These cases usually involve the unfair treatment of minorities in the legal system.

Throughout the riveting and eye-opening memoir, Just Mercy, by influential lawyer Bryan Stevenson readers are given a real insight on the predominance of racial minorities on crime sentencings. He opens up on the taboo topics of prejudice and sentencing the poor and weak simply because it’s convenient. This is re-affirmed through New York Times article by Shaila Dewan, “Court by Court, Lawyers Fight Policies that Fall Heavily on the Poor,” where she point blank states “[the justice system] is waging a guerilla campaign to reserve what they consider unconstitutional practices that penalize the poor.” In addition to both of these sources, the video “Keeping the Poor Out of Jail” by Kassie Bracken and Jessica Naudziunas, two Harvard law school students, upholds the same beliefs about inequality as they take on local justice systems and current policies targeting the poor. Although the fourteenth amendment states no state shall deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws poverty remains to be an exception to some degree. Those living in poverty lack the same equality as the rest of the US, not being given fair chances in trials or overly punished for their lack of resources. There needs to be an improvement in our justice system so we can eliminate the injustice on the impoverished, whether it be a more involved state-provided lawyer or an adequate, unbiased, and

One is released from these obligations if fulfilling them is sufficiently dangerous or costly. Even in those cases where it is dangerous or costly, Shelby argues, one is still obliged to avoid worsening the injustice of societal institutions and to avoid making a just society harder to achieve (Dark Ghetto, page 154). As such, the ghetto poor, who would often have to sacrifice greatly in order to bring about just institutions, can still be rightly criticized for any action or attitude that is contrary to these two duties of avoidance. Some instances of crime do, in fact, exacerbate the injustices of the system by worsening society’s view of the ghetto poor, inciting resentment from those outside the ghettos,

Bryan Stevenson’s 2014 book, Just Mercy, is about “getting closer to mass incarceration and extreme punishment in America” (Stevenson, 2014, p.14). Stevenson focuses mainly on blatant racism and classism in the poor south by detailing a case he worked on during the 1980s. Throughout the book, Stevenson also analyzes the discrimination poor women, children, and mentally ill people face that often lands them on death row. The 2015 article “U.S. Education: Still Separate and

In the novel, Mercy Among the Children, David Adams Richards paints a intricate picture of Lyle’s struggles with his father’s past mistakes and closes the passage with Lyle finally standing up for himself after witnessing his family being heavily discriminated against in the prior pages. These pages are plush with detailed diction, vast rhetorical devices and sentence structure.

Rhetorical Analysis Essay of Just Mercy “Each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve ever done” is a quote from lawyer Bryan Stevenson in his book Just Mercy, which is about the American criminal justice system. Telling his stories defending the poor, falsely condemned or accused, minorities, women, children, and mentally disabled put into the system or death row. Throughout the book, Stevenson effectively applies rhetoric to achieve his goal of persuading readers to reconsider their perspectives on justice and equality, conveyed through the usage of logos and anecdotes. The application of logos aids in persuading the reader’s stance on justice and equality.

Author of the novel Just Mercy and Executive Director of the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), Bryan Stevenson shares his belief that is, “Each of us is more than the worst we’ve ever done”- (Stevenson “Message” 1). In this message from the author, Steveson shares and establishes the belief that he has developed during his many years of working with our corrupt and broken criminal justice system. He wants his readers to know that he is a man who has faith and is determined to make a change and give justice to the wrongfully incarcerated and sentenced. In the novel Just Mercy, Bryan Stevenson tells us the story of his life and how he became a fighter for justice and truth in a system full of corruption, bias, and lies. Stevenson also shares his

Stevenson concentrates on one of his first cases: Walter McMillian, a black man who was falsely accused of killing a white woman in Alabama and given the death penalty. Stevenson draws attention to structural problems including racial discrimination, insufficient legal representation for the impoverished, and the severity of sentencing legislation through McMillian's case and others. According to Prisilla Alderson, ‘In addition, he explores the individual accounts of death row prisoners, promoting empathy and comprehension as means of achieving justice’ (Alderson, P. (2015). “Just Mercy" is a call for more equality and equity for all people, particularly the underprivileged and less fortunate, and for addressing inequality that exists within the judicial system. Within his book, Bryan Stevenson uses repetition to create a more impactful message.

One in twenty criminals are convicted for crimes they never committed (Georgia Innocence Project), and with courts having prejudice and bias that number can and will rise. People with no access to help and assistance will oftentimes find themselves in jail because nobody saw them worth fighting for. Popular media which depicts law and justice will regularly bring a false view of it to an audience. In “Just Mercy” Bryan Stevenson employs emotional experiences with pathos, and statistics with logos to reveal the truth and alter the readers view and show the truth behind the criminal justice system and fairness of the law. To begin, Stevenson applies an emotional connection to evoke a feeling of guilt in the story to prove how unfair the court has been to people with different backgrounds.

Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson has influenced me most. Bryan Stevenson is a public interest lawyer and the founder of the Equal Justice Initiative. Throughout his career thus far, he has won relief for dozens of condemned prisoners. The book reveals the astonishingly unjust criminal justice system in the U.S. that perpetuates systemic racism and punishes those who suffer from poverty and mental illness with the death penalty. Moreover, it also recounts how Stevenson navigated a way to help the poor and the incarcerated find justice, healing and hope to rebuild their lives.

Just Mercy Persuasive Essay In the book Just Mercy, Bryan Stevenson argues that the current criminal justice system in the United States of America is inherently corrupt, especially to people of color and people in poverty. This argument is laid out throughout the course of the book, woven through different stories and backed with concrete evidence. Throughout the book, Stevenson builds upon this argument and creates an extremely strong stance for criminal justice reform and for protecting human rights. Bryan’s Stevenson’s argument for criminal justice reform in Just Mercy can be considered effective as it fulfills his goal of persuading the reader that America’s current court and prison systems are corrupt and need to be reformed.

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.

There is a general belief in our world, justice is right not a privilege, everyone deserves justice. As the great Martin Luther King, pronoun civil rights activist, once said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” In many ways The Scottsboro Trial of 1933 reflected this saying. During the trial, many people believed that the Negros were guilty not because of evidence, but because of their skin tone. Martin Luther’s statement holds true in that injustice can affect justice.