Brian Stevenson's Just Mercy

Bryan Stevenson’s bestseller, Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption, is a study of the malfeasance and inhumanity that blights America’s criminal justice system and an attempt to shed light on prison conditions, mass incarceration, racial bias and excessive punishment (Stevenson 293). After Jimmy Dill’s death, a man wrongfully sentenced to death and executed, Stevenson articulates his feelings, and finds comfort even after his perceived failure: ‘I understood that even as we are caught in a web of hurt and brokenness, we’re also in a web of healing and mercy.’ (Stevenson 294) Just as hurt and healing are a concatenation, mercy, and brokenness are linked together.

Bryan Stevenson, author of Just Mercy, is a lawyer from the rural south that advocates for mostly children on death row. He spends most of his time in low income communities with next to no hope. His TED talk was based on his experiences in these communities, his career, and his knowledge regarding minorities while addressing his predominately financially stable, White audience. Trying to persuade an audience that is not effected by what you are trying to speak against is hard, however, Bryan Stevenson is able to do so. Bryan Stevenson’s 2012 TED talk uses ethos to persuade his audience by using his status as a prominent lawyer and an everyday person who many people know and can relate to with strong respectable values in life to prove himself as a trustworthy person in order to argue his point on how the American justice system distorts the truth racial discrimination in the system, as well as the poverty t faces. His use of ethos enables him to establish trust in his audience that can make a major difference in the justice system with most of them being well respected people in society.

Bryan Stevenson’s Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption is a story of innocents sentenced to death row (2015). As an attorney at law, he sheds light on the fraudulent Criminal Justice System with the corruption of cops and prison guards, bribed witnesses, and paid off judges. Written in first person, Stevenson’s (2015) account depicts 50 years of debasement of the Criminal Justice System. Telling the accounts of corruption in first person and using dialogue that included the actual victims conversations allowed his readers to be invested in the story. His vocabulary and the stories used, made the reader realize that corruption takes place in the United States Criminal Justice System both in history and continues through today.

The novel, Just Mercy, by Bryan Stevenson covers many aspects of the legal system, including Stevenson’s quest to get prisoners who were convicted as adolescents out of adult prison. Through Stevenson’s experiences, he sees first hand experience of children that are sent to adult prisons. Specifically he saw how the prisoners who were convicted as children revert to a very low mental state and often have a great deal of trouble readjusting if they are even remotely capable of doing so. One of these experiences that Bryan Stevenson encountered was with a young fourteen year old named Charlie and the impacts of an adult world in a child’s head. Children should never be pushed into adult prisons or receive adult punishments because of their lack of clear understanding of difficult situations.

In the book he says “Of course innocent mistakes occur but the accumulated insults and indignations caused by racial presumptions are destructive in ways that are hard to measure. Constantly being suspected, accused, watched, doubted, distrusted, presumed guilty, and even feared is a burden born by people of color that can't be understood or confronted without a deeper conversation about our history of racial injustice.” While I agree with equal justice, the cause that Stevenson stands for, I believe that Stevenson’s deep sense of dedication to helping those that are unequipped to help themselves stems from his unique experiences as a poor black youth, which may also serve to taint his perception of justice. Although I do believe that “It is better that ten guilty persons shall go free than one innocent person should suffer” as we argued in discussion 3.1, I do not believe that once someone has been found guilty of certain heinous crimes they shouldn’t be able to get their sentence reduced or even be released based on a technicality (requirement of the law) due to improper procedure or unamended statute.

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).

In this essay I intend to explore the narrative conventions and values, which Oliver Smithfield presents in the short story Victim. The short story positions the reader to have negative and sympathetic opinion on the issues presented. Such as power, identity and bullying. For example Mickey the young boy is having issues facing his identity. It could be argued that finding your identity may have the individual stuck trying to fit in with upon two groups.

In the book Just Mercy: A story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson, there are several topics discussed regarding the American Justice system. One of those many topics discussed is regarding how a person’s race, social status and income, may influence the outcome of a court trail. In present day America, many years after the era of Jim crow and segregation the Justice system still seems to be more lenient towards white Americans, especially those with high income and a good standing in society. The American justice system has become unjust in the trials deemed to be fair, due to an evident prejudice against minorities, their social status and whether or not they receive a well off or poor income.

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.

Mr. Stevenson was going through the motions to be a lawyer. He wasn’t certain that this was the career for him; however, he seemed to keep pressing forward. He took a class on race and poverty litigation that sparked his interest in the subject. Part of this courses curriculum was that you had to work with an organization that does social justice work. Mr. Stevenson decided to work with the Southern Prisoners Defense Committee (SPDC) out of Atlanta, Georgia. The SPDC focused on providing legal assistance to those sentenced to death. At the time that he started working with the SPDC, numerous people were on death row and did

I can infer thru my reading of Just Mercy that Stevenson is a believer in Jesus Christ and that belief is what motivated him with great courage and conviction to fight for the poor, the oppressed, the voiceless, the vulnerable, the outcast, the wrongly condiment, women and children and those with no hope. It seems he has a heart for the death row cases and life without parole sentences where young teenagers are involved. He fought for changes in the law around the trial and incarceration of minors. A reader can find Stevenson’s idea throughout his book is that everyone make mistakes, even terrible mistakes, and that, at one time or another, everyone will need to be granted mercy. I believe people are more than the worst thing they have ever

He dedicated his life to serve those who are in need the most and needs his Help. He opens an organization call the Equal Justice Initiative that is responsible for freeing or reducing the sentences of scores of wrongfully convicted individuals. Although, Stevenson faced a lot of problems, for example, the walter case where there were false evidence against him, Stevenson was still able to serve him justice. With Stevenson’s help many young kids, the falsely convicted and the ill were able to receive justice.

I invite you to be my guest at this year's Facing History and Ourselves Benefit dinner, which will feature attorney, human rights activist, and author of Just Mercy, Bryan Stevenson. A MacArthur fellow and founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, Stevenson is a visionary legal thinker and social justice advocate, and a leader in the movement to fight mass incarceration in the United States. His electrifying TED talk on the subject of injustice has been viewed over two million times. At or after the dinner, I expect Facing History & Ourselves to encourage attendees to donate.

In the novel, Just Mercy, by Bryan Stevenson, Stevenson explains his quest to get prisoners, who were originally convicted when they were adolescents, out of adult prison. Later, Stevenson sees how the prisoners who were convicted as children revert to a very low mental state and often have a great deal of trouble readjusting if they are even remotely capable of doing so. That is why children should never be pushed into adult prisons or receive adult punishments because of their lack of brain development and not one hundred percent clear understanding of difficult situations. One of these difficult situations that Bryan Stevenson encountered was with a young fourteen year old named Charlie.

First of all, it was an accidental to make Stevenson more firm faith to be a lawyer. Stevenson was born in a poor, racially segregated rural. He did not affected by the living environment, and he was positive and became a student at Harvard Law School. Stevenson was holding a determination to struggle for racial inequality and