Review Of Just Mercy By Bryan Stevenson

Mercy, a concept describing compassion or forgiveness towards someone whom it is within one’s power to punish or harm. As a humanitarian, future world leader and citizen of America I’d like to think that the world I live in is a forgiving place where everyone gets a second chance. Unfortunately, in the court of law, this is not always true. By reading Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson I found that it is very hard to acquire justice and redemption to many civilians who have been incarcerated. This book explores various stories of injustices in the judicial system by incorporating people from different racial groups, socioeconomic background, mental disabilities and more. African American lawyer, Bryan Stevenson seeks for justice as he represents

Stevenson’s main goal with death row sentences are to get them re-trialed and sentenced with a lower level punishment, for he believes killing someone is inhumane. The book provides shocking data in regards to death row cases; “By the end of 1989 the number of people executed by the state would double (p68).” “Since 1976 judges in Alabama have overridden jury sentencing verdicts in capital cases 111 times. In 91 percent of these cases judges replaced life verdicts from juries with death sentences (p70).” Time and time again, we see Stevenson working hard in the fight against the court’s decision to make these statistics

As Stevenson advances in his career is a lawyer, he sees that the reason criminals continue to behave in misconduct is because they are broken. These criminals are broken by a cycle of oppression due to the court of law creating various roadblocks that bericade them from starting a new life. Prisoners cannot vote, and are not offered jobs or standard living quarters once they come back to society. Incarceration is the new Jim Crow, people can not break free of a system that only wants to hold them back, thus they lash out in rebelia because they are broken. In order to reduce the level of violence, Stevenson suggest that we should show mercy. Stevenson says, “The power of just mercy is that it belongs to the undeserving. It’s when mercy is least expected that it is most potent and strong enough to break the cycle… it has the power to heal the psychic harm and injuries that lead to aggression and violence, abuse of power and mass incarceration (p294).” In short, showing compassion to someone who does not do the right thing makes them want to do better. From personal experience, a friend of mine hates being punished and ridiculed for smoking marijuana. He lashes out in anger and has violent episodes anytime someone confronts him about the issue. Instead of bashing him, we tried the technique of showing him compassion. When his smoking habits get out of