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The latest book club pick from Oprah Love Warrior is the highly anticipated new memoir by bestselling author Glennon Doyle Melton - telling the story of her journey of self-discovery after the implosion of her marriage. See more
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"Love Warrior" by Glennon Doyle Melton is the highly anticipated new memoir about the story of her journey of self-discovery after the implosion of her marriage. See more
I have a new hero . . . Bryan Stevenson. He joins my other hero lawyer, Morris Dees, in my personal pantheon of those who fight for social justice.
Bryan Stevenson is the self-effacing author of this terrific book about the legal war he has waged against cruel, unjust sentencing practices in this country for over three decades now. His history of founding and working for the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Alabama, is told through real case histories of real people who were subjected to degradation and inhumane treatment that will shock you, anger you, and bring you to tears.
I spent a 25+ year career as a federal prosecutor, in the rarefied world of the federal courts, and am ashamed to say that I had no idea that such horrendous things were happening simultaneously in the state courts of our country. How Stevenson managed to stay on task for decades, to spend so much time simply connecting with his clients as human beings, and to accomplish such extraordinary results is amazing. I learned a lot, and the teachings of The New Jim Crow, by Michelle Alexander [another excellent book on the prison industrial complex in this country] were reinforced.
Perhaps my favorite chapter, for what it said about humanity, is entitled Mitigation. I will be using the facts from that chapter in a future talk at my Unitarian Universalist church. "Each of us is more than the worst thing we have ever done." This phrase echoes throughout this work, which, while fact filled, also has a strong spiritual component to it.
This is a great book. Please read it, and do as I did upon completion. Find the Equal Justice Initiative and give them some financial support. They work on a shoestring, and take care of some of the most helpless and needy among us.
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At its core, Bryan Stevenson's JUST MERCY is about the inherent inhumanity of the American justice system. As Stevenson puts it, "Presumptions of guilt, poverty, racial bias, and a host of other social, structural, and political dynamics have created a system that is defined by error, a system in which thousands of innocent people now suffer in prison." This is a system that condemns children to life imprisonment without parole, that makes petty theft a crime as serious as murder, and that has declared war on hundreds of thousands of people with substance abuse problems by imprisoning them and denying them help. Stevenson is an attorney with the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Alabama, an organization that offers free legal services to the poor and disenfranchised. His book is a sobering look at criminal justice from the perspective of those least likely to be treated fairly.
JUST MERCY explores a number of devastating cases, including children as young as fourteen facing life imprisonment, and scores of people on death row - mostly poor, and mostly black - who have been unfairly convicted. But the central focus is on Walter McMillan, a black man sentenced to death for the murder of a prominent young white woman. McMillan claimed he did not commit this crime, and he had a score of alibi witnesses, but he was quickly railroaded into both a conviction and a death sentence. Stevenson spent years working to get McMillan a new trial, and the two men remained connected throughout the remainder of McMillan's life. It's a fascinating case, one that involves perjury, police corruption, a racist judge, and prosecutors more intent on protecting their political positions than finding justice.Read more ›
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The author, Bryan A. Stevenson is the founder and executive director of the Montgomery Alabama Equal Justice Initiative which was formed initially to provide free, quality legal services to condemned men and women on death row in Alabama and to challenge the injustice of the criminal justice system against poor people and people of color.
He has represented those on death row, mentally disabled people whose illnesses have landed them in prison for decades, and abused and neglected and emotionally ill and cognitively impaired children who have been prosecuted as adults and imprisoned in adult prisons and suffered horrible sexual and physical abuse.
Bryan Stevenson is a hero to the many whose lives he has saved.
Stevenson states in the introduction to the book that he's writing about, "...Getting closer to mass incarceration and extreme punishment in America....how easily we condemn people...the injustice we create when we allow fear, anger and distance shape the way we treat the most vulnerable among us."
* America has the highest rate of incarceration in the world. The U.S. is the only country that condemned children (currently 2,500) to life imprisonment without parole. Race is the greatest predictor of who gets the death penalty in the U.S. There are many instances of bad lawyers, later disbarred who inadequately defend indigent clients.
Just Mercy's focus is on the author's tireless, almost Herculean efforts and constant struggles to get those who've been unjustly accused off death row and also to advocate for children as young as 13 years who've been sentenced to life without parole.
The book's main character is a man who has been framed and is scheduled to be executed.Read more ›
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This item: Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption
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