Bryan Stevenson : 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.

By this time Detroit had become the epicenter of the American automobile. Detroit’s grand boulevards, were now lost in this ever expanding industrial Mecca. Detroit was home to some of America’s biggest names in automotives, including Walter Chrysler, The Dodge Brothers, and the outspoken Henry Ford. Workers in these factories often earned more in wages than many unskilled labor positions around the country. As news of the high-wage jobs in the up-and-coming motor city made its way around the country, migrants began to flood the city in hopes of a better life. Overcrowding among blacks and the have-nots of society was a harsh reality in Detroit’s inner city ghetto, which went by the name of Black Bottom. Several families would cram into single family flats, often grateful to even have a place to stay. Many made due without luxuries like running water, and disease ran rampant along the dirty over-crowded streets. This migration was not often welcomed among white Detroiters. A message of “One Hundred Percent Americanism” was being spread and upheld by the Ku Klux Klan, and Negroes were not Americans. Many white Detroiters, whether they were with the KKK or not, felt that segregation was the way it should be. They feared that if blacks were to breach the color line into white neighborhoods then property values would plummet, real estate agents would not show the houses and the neighborhood would be ultimately

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.

Stevenson believes that in the justice system we have a “disturbing indifference to inaccurate or unreliable verdicts, our comfort with bias, and our tolerance of unfair prosecutions and convictions”(17). McMillian’s case proves this point because, there was unreliable witnesses that charged McMillian with the murder of Morrison. Ralph Myers was the man who told the police that McMillian was responsible for the murder of Morrison. Investigation started to show that Myers had never met McMillian. ABI agents proved this by “having Myers meet up with McMillian at a grocery store while they monitored the interaction”(33). “Myers could not identify McMillian amongst several black men present he had

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.

Bryan Stevenson grew up in a rural, poor, racially segregated settlement on the eastern shore of the Delmarva Peninsula, in Delaware, where the racial history of United States casts a long shadow. He grew up in a country settlement where some people lived in tiny shacks. He was very close to his grandmother, who was the daughter of slaves in Virginal... He studied philosophy in college, but changed his major because he thought that nobody was going to pay him to philosophize. He then enrolled at Harvard law school to do his graduate studies .He was kind of uncertain in his life , but deep inside he knew that he wanted to help the poor. While interning one summer at the Southern Prisoners Defense Committee in a death row, he came to realize how fragile is the justice system of America, he felt sad to all the wrongly accused who were spending their life in a death row , counting their final days. After graduation he went back to SPDC as a full time employee.

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.

Through every hero’s life, there comes many injustices towards him/her not only because they’re trying to make a difference but also due to their appearance, ideas, and their ambition for justice. Stevenson’s first run in with injustice was a night while was just sitting in his car, being pointed at with a gun with a white male in control of his life. As stated we get a point of view of how Stevenson felt due to this particular incident, “What I replayed the whole incident in my mind, what bothered me most was the mount when the officer drew his weapon and I thought about running” (42). When proceeding with a case, Stevenson had to go visit a felon, but when trying to enter a while male correctional officer that owned a truck with many disgraceful bumper stickers stopped him in his tracks. This man filled with tattoos with no source of empathy or sympathy initiates a confrontation with Stevenson due to the power he is given. Although Stevenson came to visit many times, this guard was new to him stating, “You’re going to go into that bathroom and take everything off it you expect to get into my prison”

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.

Stevenson becomes largely aware of all of the injustices, specifically all the racial injustices that occur within the prisons and specifically within death row. This injustice that occurs within death row is saddening to observe, especially when it comes down to ending one’s life. Stevenson reminds his audience that everyone makes mistakes and deserves mercy because no one is perfect, however every life has value. His most prevailing case of this is the Walter McMillian case. At this time in 1980s, Alabama has the fastest growing prison population. Stevenson therefore spends much of his time in Alabama for the defense of McMillian as he is accused of murder and an alleged drug lord and rapist. With the defense of Walter’s community on his side along with his connection with EJI (Equal Justice Initiative), Stevenson was determined to

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.

My role as Allen Brookson is significant in the case of Brookson v. Carter because I was the first to be wrongfully attacked by Wendell Carter. My role will help to prove that Carter is guilty for various reasons, and why Allen Brookson and Fred Brookson should be offered compensations for both severe physical and posttraumatic stress. The physical injuries sustained were taken to the hospital that resulted in a detrimental medical expense and traumatic stress such has weight loss, chronic anxiety, and insomnia. Essentially, the Brooksons should win this case because Carter committed a Class B misdemeanor by illegally carrying a knife that can injury someone, and we will, too, because of Assault of the third degree, Carter committed assault

The majority of these organizations aim to fix multiple problems in the criminal justice system, but one of their main initiatives is to abolish life-in-prison without parole in the U.S.. Bryan Stevenson’s organization; The Equal Justice Initiative, is featured among these organizations because they have argued in the Supreme Court against child death-in-prison sentences and have won many cases in favor of their young clients. These organizations aim to publicize the injustice that many young criminals