In Just Mercy, author Stevenson details his founding and subsequent work with the Equal Justice Initiate, which helps defend the poor and the wrongly convicted from death row and life sentences. The book alternates between the lengthy work Stevenson does to get an innocent man, Walter McMillian, off of death row, and shorter stories on dozens of other people he helps.
The book makes a compelling case that our justice system is not justice for all. In many cases, the poor, minorities, and the disabled get an unfair shot because they do not have the money to hire a real lawyer or don't know what to do to get the legal help they deserve or are racially profiled to be a hardened criminal without justification. This means they often end up in jail for life or on death row when they should have been cleared or gotten reduced sentences for non-violent or non-homicide crimes.
In Walter's case, prosecutors and sheriffs conspired to keep evidence that would have exonerated him from his lawyers and then during the appeals process, maliciously refused to listen to reason and facts. The craziest evidence that the State refused to consider is that Walter was at a party at the time of the crime and had dozens of eye witnesses to his innocence.
Stevenson also touches upon work he has done to try to get women off of death row for being found guilty of murder after giving birth to stillborn babies. Or in one woman's case, of being on death row for the death of her baby when she hadn't even been pregnant. Stevenson also helped juveniles and mentally disabled people, among many others. It's hard to read all this and not despair for these people.
While the book talks about ending capital punishment for all and ending life sentences for juveniles, the author mainly uses examples where people are innocent or grossly over-sentenced to make his point. He doesn't address the case of repeated murders or other repeated heinous violent offenses. In those cases, do the perpetrators deserve leniency and mercy? If so, why? This is the one shortcoming of the book, and it would have been interesting to see more discussion on that.
Overall, this is a powerful, insightful, and emotionally-fraught book, one I would recommend to anyone wanting to learn more about our criminal justice system.
Readaroo Rating: 4 stars
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