Analysis Of Just Mercy By Bryan Stevenson

In the book “Just Mercy” by Bryan Stevenson, the author is a lawyer and founder of the Equal Injustice Initiative who helps and defends those that are in desperate needs. Stevenson tells different stories of different cases that he had through the course of his professional career. One of the most heartbreaking stories that Stevenson shares on his books is about a boy named Charlie. Charlie is a fourteen years old who murdered his stepfather because he was abusive with his mom and left her unconscious on the floor. Charlie was sentenced to an adult prison because his stepfather was an ex-police officer. When Steven heard about Charlie’s case he ran to the prison to go see him and the first thing that Charlie tells Stevenson is how every night he would get sexually abused in prison by so many men ,and how they would do really awful things to him. “Florida is one of a few states that allows the prosecutor to decide to charge a child in adult court for certain crimes and has no minimum age for trying a child as an adult.”(Stevenson). Charlie’s case is not an unusual one. There are hundreds of prisoners currently in US prisons who are suffering ridiculous prison sentences while other prisoners with more violent, heinous, and terrible crimes have been sentenced to lesser time in jail or are already out. In order to understand why this is still a problem, it’s important to first understand the current issues facing prisons today and what effects come from these issues. Then

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.

The main social problem addressed in Just Mercy is the unjust American justice system and the extreme biases and prejudices that plague it. There are numerous examples of this shown throughout the book. The best example of racial bias and prejudice is Walter McMillian’s case because it shows both extreme racial biases and extreme racial prejudices against McMillian because of the color of his skin.

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.

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).

In Bryan Stevenson’s novel, Just Mercy, 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 works to explain and provide examples of problems within the justice system, and the urgency to correct these. This being said, throughout a personal reading of the book, one might 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 in 2014 by Stevenson Bryan. This story takes place in Montgomery Alabama. This story is about the broken system of justice. How people are judged unfairly even in the supreme Court. Bryan Stevenson primarily focuses on death penalty cases and juveniles sentenced to life or death. He provides relief for those incarcerated also, he understands the need to fix this criminal justice system by focusing on poverty, and racial disparities. Stevenson chooses cases that did not receive justice. This book discusses the prison life and how they are treated. It also decides about the different cases and how each case has one theory. It provides additional insight into the rush to incarcerate for life people as young teenagers, putting them in an adult prison. Where they are certain to suffer from sexual, mentally and physical abuse.

What if you were innocent, but people couldn't see past your race and called you "guilty" for something you didn't do? This is one of the problems in Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird and Bryan Stevenson's Just Mercy. To Kill a Mockingbird is about a girl named Scout, who is growing up during The Great Depression. Just Mercy is about an upstart lawyer that deals with racial discrimination in the court system. Both To Kill a Mockingbird and Just Mercy correlate with each other, are significant today, and can be tied back to racial profiling.

Mass Incarceration is a growing dilemma in the United States that populates our prisons at an alarming rate. Michelle Alexander is a professor at Ohio State University and a graduate of Stanford law school. She states in her award winning book, The new Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness “In less than thirty years, the U.S. penal population exploded from around 300,000 to more than 2 million” (Alexander, 6). These young men and women are unable to afford a decent lawyer because they come from such a poverty-stricken background. Men and women are at a financial disadvantage in our justice system. Lawyers and attorneys cost a fortune and most people can just simply not afford them. Others plead to their charges because

As stated in the beginning of this paper, I have always been aware of the “favoritism” in the justice system but this has help me develop a more logical understanding of it. I have also come to realize that my brother was apart of that favoritism because he is white. While writing this paper, I’ve experienced many emotions. Those emotions ranged from sadness to confusion to anger.

Segregation and discrimination both happen to African Americans in Bryan Stevenson’s Just Mercy and Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. They are viewed as less, like they show be treated differently. In To Kill a Mockingbird, the town of Maycomb took Bob Ewell's word over Tom Robinson's because he was of a different race. Bryan Stevenson mentions that many young African Americans go to prison because they did something bad, but this then affects these children for the rest of their lives. Many African Americans are still affected today by the justice system and how they are treated by other people. Racial injustice has been a huge part of history and both, Just Mercy and To Kill a Mockingbird talk about racial injustice, that is still happening today.

Having read Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson, which shows many of the flaws in the justice system and the need to defend those who are most desperate along with learning about restorative justice through Howard Zehr’s work has stirred in me a passion for creating a justice system that works better. While my academic focus is on international studies I have drawn heavily on political science and criminal and restorative justice classes and was therefore

A Public Service Announcement (PSA) pops up on television of a young woman, frail to the bones, staring at you with beaten eyes, devastated by poverty. The next scene of the PSA shows the same women handcuffed and being led through the gates of the local county jail. This scene plays out everyday of prisoners that have come from from difficult, impoverished backgrounds. Bryan Stevenson chronicled the lives of numerous poverty- stricken prisoners during his time as a non- profit lawyer in Montgomery, Alabama. Co-founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, Stevenson focused on how his organization could help change the unjust and discriminatory justice system. In Bryan Stevenson’s book Just Mercy, poverty affects the lives of those sentenced for criminal activity due to a lack of adequate and available legal, social, and medical resources.

The novel Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson, published 2014. Stevenson once said, "the opposite of poverty is not wealth, it's justice". Poverty is the social condition of disfavored and within the problems poverty faces, the need of justice is the solution. Stevenson's novel explores the case of Walter Mcmillian, a death row inmate who is wrongly accused for a crime he didn't commit. Stevenson fight for justice for Mcmillian and his community, who suffers from injustice from the criminal justice system. The higher authorities and the justice system is unfair, have biased treatment and social inequalities to the poor communities and criminal cases such as Walters. Unfair treatment and disfavored of the prisoners and to their community is because of their background, it's goes unseen in society that it tends to be a trend, especially among people of colors.

The American Justice system has long argued about the morality, or lack of thereof, of the death penalty. The debate of whether to abolish it or not is controversial already, but in Bryan Stevenson’s book Just Mercy, he sheds light on parts of the justice system that people don’t usually see. When considering the racism in the justice system, the innocent people who are incarcerated, and the death penalty’s lack of purpose, Bryan Stevenson was correct when he asserted that the death penalty was unjust and unnecessary.