Summary Of Just Mercy

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

In his book, Just Mercy, Bryan Stevenson writes of cases where the defendant was wrongfully condemned because their attorney did not do their job correctly. In some cases, this behavior extended past the original trial, all the way through any appeals available to the client. Stevenson continues by discussing how the trials were either clearly biased, or evidence was blatantly ignored. Yet often, the attorney either submitted a brief attesting to no appeal, or simply neglected to file an appeal by the deadline. Their clients not only did not receive the fair trial that our constitution mandates, but also lost any chance to take advantage of the fail-safes that were built into the legal system. When these ineffective defenders were eventually disbarred, no investigations were launched to revisit their past cases in search of legal malpractice. Instead, any cases directly impacted by their conduct were left as they were- with unfairly convicted people sitting behind bars. While the Equal Justice Initiative does what it can to help find justice for people who deserve it, they must be contacted by, or on behalf of, the victim of injustice. There are few programs to help individuals with mental illness or those without knowledge of the initiative, even though these are the people who need guidance the most.

In "Just Mercy," written by Bryan Stevenson, the brutal reality of prison life and the injustices experienced by young offenders are addressed. Stevenson says, passionately, "Something has broken us all. " Our ability to be compassionate is fostered and maintained by our common imperfection and vulnerability (Stevenson, 2014, p. 292). These remarks highlight how critical it is to fix the structural problems in our legal system. This essay will make an argument for altering juvenile incarceration laws and introducing mandatory regulations to enhance prison quality, with a focus on the significance of rehabilitation and compassion.

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.

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.

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, the author of Just Mercy, has many themes in his book. One of which is the importance of human life. He goes through many cases of which, in the end, he realizes that every human deserves empathy and mercy and a fair chance at living their lives. Throughout the novel there is one specific case that changes Stevenson’s perspective the most however. This case is the Walter McMillian case that demonstrates the unfairness that was tolerated for death row inmates. Stevenson expresses this theme throughout the book. Some examples are through the McMillian case, the mental patient case, the juvenile case, and his own experience.

Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson and All American Boys by Jason Reynolds are connected, not only by their similar story lines but by the theme and moral lessons each book puts forward. Just Mercy, A Story Of Justice And Redemption, is written from the viewpoint of Mr. Stevenson as he goes through many people's cases trying to give them the justice they deserve. All American Boys is the story of a young teenage boy who is beaten up by a cop because it is believed he is stealing a bag of chips.

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.

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.

It is no secret that the United States of America has a problem with civil unrest, as that was essentially what the country was founded upon. As a sophisticated young individual living in modern times, one can see how the naïve public thought that the problems of the past would stay in the past. The only difference is the groups represented in each party. Police, skepticism, and fear are all still prevalent factors in today’s society, just the people being oppressed are not colonists, but minorities living fairly in this country. I personally feel disgusted by the fact that individuals have to live their lives consistently looking behind their backs, but I’m not the only one. Ross Gay, an African-American professor at Indiana University and author of “Some Thoughts on Mercy”, knows firsthand this feeling of paranoia and a mistrust in law enforcement. After reading his article “Some Thoughts on Mercy”, I really do believe it boils down to one simple message. Growing skepticism and fear of the presence of an ever-looming police force is directly affecting the psychological and physical health of minorities who are unjustly racially profiled by law enforcement. Ross Gay conveys this through his own personal accounts, and encounters with law enforcement. Sadly, this is a prevalent issue in the United States, one that should not be overlooked.

The legitimacy of the use of capital punishment has been tarnished by its widespread misuse , which has clouded our judgment regarding the justifiability of the death penalty as a punitive measure. However, the problems with capital punishment, such as the “potential error, irreversibility, arbitrariness and racial skew" , are not a basis for its abolition, as the world of homicide suffer from these problems more acutely. To tackle this question, one must disregard the currently blemished universal status quo and purely assess the advantages and disadvantages of the death penalty as a punitive measure. Through unprejudiced examination of the death penalty and its consequential impacts, it is evident that it is a punishment that effectively serves its retributive, denunciatory, deterrent, and incapacitative goals.

Who knew that America thrives off of one of the seven deadly sins? No, it’s not gluttony, but pride. Selfish pride in our country and ourselves has steered our nation onto a path of corruption. It has persuaded almost every person to care more for themselves than their neighbour, not to mention a stranger. In Bryan Stevenson’s novel, Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption, Americans’ lack of care or concern for others is unveiled through our mistreatment of the condemned. Our selfishness has bled into our laws and beliefs, which has caused malpractice in and out of the courtroom.

In Toni Morrison’s novel, A Mercy, Lina loses her friends, family, and village to rampant diseases and deadly fire, both brought upon by Europeans, only then to be hurt all the more by other Europeans who briefly take her in (40). Morrison uses Lina's experiences in losing her family and villages, and her subsequent ridicule and abandonment to depict the tragic lives of Native Americans to highlight the carelessness and cruelty of Europeans like the French soldiers and "kindly" Presbyterians that Lina encounters, during the Colonial era (46). Lina's tribe is devastated by disease, and her village is destroyed by fire, because the European settlers refuse to treat the Native Americans humanely (24). European settlers, desiring power, give Lina’s

Other examples as to why societies based on hate would eventually fall are present in the real world as well. A well-known example would be the Holocaust.