In Just Mercy, Bryan Stevenson (founder of the Equal Justice Initiative) documents his career defending disadvantaged clients. The main focus is upon his work getting Alabama death row inmate Walter McMillian exonerated of a murder that he had been framed for, due to the local Sheriff’s hatred over the fact that McMillian (an African-American) had had an affair with a white woman. Stevenson recounts the case and also refers to others that he worked on in the same era, and considers their place in the history of the American justice system and what they demonstrated to him about the flaws within said system that leave those from ethnic minority backgrounds, the poor and the mentally ill most at risk.
- Bryan Stevenson’s prose as he recounts the McMillian case in narrative form is masterful, as his writing style is detailed-yet-concise, and as he details the uncovering of originally-concealed evidence of Walter McMillian’s innocence, we become increasingly shocked by the injustice of it all, yet also find ourselves on tenderhooks, as the clear picture about the type of people whom Stevenson was up against makes us wonder how and when he would eventually get his client exonerated.
- In detailing such a broad range of cases – those that he worked on, those that he was aware of from other pro-bono law firms, those that were historic cases that he learnt of in law school – from a multitude of States, Bryan Stevenson paints a harrowing picture of how disadvantaged thousands of people have been, even when it has been all too obvious that they are being framed, demonstrating that the McMillian case was far from an exception to the norm.
- Through referring to many cases of innocent people who were sent to Death Row, Bryan Stevenson presents an argument against capital punishment that nobody could reasonably argue with.
- A harrowing book that is utterly powerful in its raw humanity, as Bryan Stevenson shockingly reveals the range of horrific abuses that vulnerable prisoners have been subjected to and the psychological toll. He also expresses immense sympathy for the families of murder victims who are forced to relive the tragedies when it becomes clear that their loved one’s supposed killer was innocent all along.
- Bryan Stevenson is vulnerable as he discusses the emotional toll that his work has had upon him, and is completely transparent about himself and the flaws that he came to recognise through his work running the Equal Justice Initiative – he is honest about his naiveties that his cases exposed, the times he said the wrong things, and the times that he struggled to keep his temper and/or composure.
- Towards the end, Bryan Stevenson describes work that he undertook almost 20 years after the McMillian case that ultimately resulted in Supreme Court decisions, but this done too briefly when they really deserve to be the topic of an entire book.
VERDICT: MUST
Pete Kirkpatrick's Reviews 