Michael Mongin

English 1201
Professor Stalbird
February 6th 2017

Evaluation of Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson.

Just Mercy is the story of Bryan Stevensons legal work in the United States and the

racial and economic biases he saw in the justice system during this time, specifically in the case

of Walter McMillan, the books principal character. Stevensons work is an easy read, written

with an almost bait and switch method that moves between the stories of his many cases and

appeals and the story of Walter McMillan that keeps the reader on edge throughout the entire

book.

Stevensons legal work primarily focused on those condemned to death on death row or

by serving life sentences without parole. Throughout the book he takes on cases from multiple

angles of the same problem. Whether it was a child being convicted or a mentally disabled adult,

Stevenson points to the U.S. having an issue with mass incarceration of people who are capable

of bettering themselves. He learns that the majority of the people being sent to prison for life

sentences or to death row are from similar backgrounds, being poor and from minority racial

groups. Stevenson founds the Equal Justice Initiative or EJI to combat these issues and began

his ascent into the reshaping of how the judicial system in the U.S. treats those who are broken in

a system that longs to keep those people broken.

The story of Walter McMillan is a perfect parallel to most of the issues that Stevenson is

seeing within the U.S. justice system. Walter is a black man living in the south who works for

himself and doesnt have a lot of money. He is disliked and blamed for a murder because he is

seeing a white woman. He doesnt have money for good lawyers and he is in the heartland of
systematic racial oppression. Even after the community around him pays for lawyers he is

sentenced to death for a crime that evidence and testimonies show he did not commit. Stevenson

has one of the largest struggles in his career fighting for Walters freedom and being shut out by a

system that was designed to keep poor people from minorities from winning at all. However, he

finally prevails and is able to free Walter only to realize the gravity of the situation and proclaims

to the judge

Your Honor, I just want to say this before we adjourn. It was far too easy to convict this

wrongly accused man for murder and send him to death row for something he didnt do

and much too hard to win his freedom after proving his innocence. We have serious

problems and important work that must be done in this state (Stevenson 287).

Stevensons Just Mercy gives a new insight into just how messed up the sociopolitical

system really is in the U.S. and how much work needs done to level the playing field for

everyone. The reader is carefully guided through experiences that shed light into the darkest

corners of racial oppression and systematic torture of people who are broken. The book gives the

reader an instinctive aspiration for change by presenting the issues and showing how, with

enough perseverance and passion for justice and freedom, one can do what was once impossible

and change the system along the way, clearing a path for others to follow.