JUST MERCY (Book Review Sample)

Student’s Name Professor’s Name Course Date Just Mercy Book Review The book Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson provides powerful insights into America’s flawed criminal justice system. The text, which is a mixture of a memoir and case history, narrates the journey that Stevenson, a public interest lawyer, takes to exonerate Walter McMillan and several other wrongfully convicted inmates. In addressing systemic injustices in the system, the author explores various themes in sixteen chapters, including social injustices, racism, economic injustices, criminal injustices, and policing, which reveal the systemic inequality in the United States and discrimination in society. According to the text, the American criminal justice system is inherently flawed, targeting marginalized communities and perpetuating injustices through wrongful convictions, harsh sentences, and inadequate legal representation. Stevenson begins the text with an introduction, where he narrates his early experiences as a young law student and intern and how he developed his passion for the profession. This section is titled “Higher Ground,” the phrase he got from a song his first death-row client sang as he was being cuffed away. This song reminded him of the unfair judgments that he constantly experienced in the racially segregated rural countries of Delaware, where he grew up (Stevenson 13). This introduction already reveals the economic injustices that the racial minority groups were experiencing, which were accompanied by social injustices and discrimination. The racism and social injustices were evident in McMillan’s case, which Stevenson introduces in Chapter 1 titled, “Mocking Bird Players.” Racism at this point was extremely normal, and there even were Miscegenation laws. These laws imply that the justice system was already skewed against minority groups and ruled unfairly in any cases involving them. The second chapter of the text is titled “Stand,” where the author narrates about his early days as a lawyer, having to handle several cases and in the process, he narrates dealing with a case by the family of Lourida Ruffin, also an African American man who was stopped for a traffic offense, where the police beat him up seriously and then threw him in jail. He needed his asthma inhaler and medication, but the police denied him. In Chapter Three, entitled “Trials and Tribulations,” Stevenson narrates about McMillan’s unfair discriminatory arrest and subsequent framing. The officers train Ralph Myers to claim that McMillan assaulted and sexually molested him, and Sheriff Tate utilizes this opportunity to arrest McMillan (Stevenson 47). These chapters reveal the racism that was rampant in the society, where minority groups were randomly arrested and charges forced on them so that they could be jailed. Stevenson continues with the theme of criminal injustice in Chapter Four, titled “The Old Rugged Cross,” where he narrates the story of Herbert Richardson, a Vietnam veteran who has PTSD. Richardson was accused of a murder that he did not intend to commit, and in advocating for his sentencing, the prosecutor pushed for the theory of “transferred intent” and went as far as urging the death penalty because the defendant was a “Black Muslim from the north” (Stevenson 77). These injustices are also perpetuated in society, as evident in chapter five, where the author recounts the story by W.E.B. Du Bois titled “Of the Coming of John.” The story shows the intention of the larger society to maintain the status quo by ensuring that the black community does not get enlightenment through education. When John comes back to society to educate the next generation after being sent to study, he is met with intimidation and closure of the school, and ultimately, he is lynched. Chapter six of the text continues the narrative of racism, where Stevenson recalls the story of a 14-year-old black boy who was being tried as an adult for capital murder. The story shows how deeply racism was entrenched in society when the prosecutor decided to push for Charlie’s trial as an adult, noting that George, whom Charlie had accidentally shot for constantly abusing his mother, was a courageous police officer beloved by the community (Stevenson 120). The judge agreed with the prosecutor’s statement. The author reveals further details about the rigged nature of the justice system against minority groups by noting that the justice system operated on a model that assumed that violent crime was a crime against the community, in which case the victim and their family’s story did not have much impact. Consequently, such cases were left to the biased prosecutors and judges, who could concoct evidence and use it to convict the suspects. The theme of discrimination in policing is evident in chapters eight and nine, where the black community members were treated as suspects, and once arrested, witnesses were forced and trained to provide false testimony. Sadly, even as the judicial system realizes that some of these cases are concocted, no tangible action is taken against the officers. In many of these cases, the falsely accused individuals are exonerated after serving a significant amount of their time in prison, with some ending up being executed for the crime they never committed. For example, in 1944, a black boy was executed in South Carolina at only 14 years old, and years later, a white man admitted to the crime (Stevenson 157). This trend is prominent even today, where African Americans continue to get unfair treatment in policing. Police officers treat them as suspects and indiscriminately search them even when there is no crime committed. Unfortunately, many of the laws seeking to protect the rights of prisoners were ceremonial and became dysfunctional when dealing with African American suspects. In Chapters 10 and 11, the suspects get unfair treatment even when they are unwell and innocent. In chapter 10, Stevenson talks about the terrible conditions in prison, where guards and inmates do not understand the problems of the mentally ill and dish out severe punishment that worsens their conditions (Stevenson 236). In Chapter 11, even after the court finds out that W...