Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption
by Bryan Stevenson (New York: Spiegel & Grau, 2015, $16.00, paperback)
Reviewed by Fisher Humphreys
In America today there is bipartisan support for reforming our criminal justice system in general and our corrections institutions—prisons—in particular. Fiscal conservatives are troubled by the enormous costs of the prisonindustrial complex. Social progressives are troubled by the fact that our laws and sentencing guidelines are such that we are now warehousing not just violent criminals but also non-violent offenders, drug addicts, mentally ill persons, innocent people, and children. Between 1990 and 2005, a new prison opened every 10 days (!) in the United States. Today, about 2,000,000 persons are incarcerated in America, by far the largest number of any country in the world. About 6,000,000 other persons are on parole or probation.
Many Americans feel antipathy toward these people. In a way, this is understandable. Some of them (not all, not most, but some) have committed horrific violence.
But, of course, antipathy towards people is not compatible with our Christian faith. Jesus loved all people without exception, and he taught his followers to do the same. In fact, he apparently went out of his way to express love for morally flawed lawbreakers—dishonest tax collectors, for example.
I assume that many readers of this journal are in the same position I am in: I don’t know very many incarcerated persons very well. For those of us in this position, this book is a gift. Scattered throughout are the stories of more than 20 incarcerated persons told in such a way that we can appreciate their humanity. These narratives are every bit as intriguing as the detective fiction that I enjoy reading and watching on television. Although the book is full of information I didn’t know before, it is not didactic. It’s a narrative with a lot of subplots.
The subplots are about incarcerated persons. The main plot is about Stevenson and his work. Here, briefly, is his story. He was born in 1959 and grew up in Delaware. When he was 16, his grandfather was murdered; so Stevenson has an insider’s appreciation for the suffering of family members of murder victims, and he never forgets them. He was educated at Eastern University in Philadelphia and at Harvard Law School. During a legal internship in Atlanta, he developed a passion for providing legal assistance to poor people. In 1989 he founded the Equal Justice Initiative. EJI is located in Montgomery, Alabama, and much of its work is in Alabama, but it also provides help for incarcerated persons across our nation.
All these things are in the book. Now let me tell you two things that aren’t in the book because Stevenson is too modest to mention them. First, he is a renaissance man. As a young man he was an athlete and served as organist at a church. He has given piano concerts. His TED talk has had almost 3,000,000 views. Yale and Harvard are among the 25 (!) universities that have awarded him an honorary doctorate. In 1995, he received a MacArthur Foundation “Genius” Prize and, in 2016, he received a Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship. In 2014, Time magazine designated Just Mercy one of the 10 most important nonfiction books of the year and, in 2015, Time named Stevenson one of the world’s 100 most influential people. Second, although Stevenson is careful not to wear his Christian faith on his sleeve, I suggest that he is a modern day saint—an Albert Schweitzer or a Dorothy Day or a Mother Teresa or a Václav Havel or a Paul Farmer for our time.
Soon after Stevenson moved to Montgomery, he became acquainted with the marvelous Rosa Parks of bus boycott fame and with some of her friends who also were pioneers of the civil rights movement. During an early visit, Ms. Parks asked him: “Bryan, tell me who you are and what you’re doing.” Here is part of his reply: “I have a law project called the Equal Justice Initiative, and we’re trying to help people on death row. We’re trying to stop the death penalty, actually. We’re trying to do something about prison conditions and excessive punishment. We want to free people who’ve been wrongly convicted.
We want to end unfair sentences in criminal cases and stop racial bias in criminal justice. We’re trying to help the poor and do something about indigent defense and the fact that people don’t get the legal help they need. We’re trying to help people who are mentally ill. We’re trying to stop them from putting children in adult jails and prisons. We’re trying to do something about poverty and hopelessness that dominates poor communities. We want to see more diversity in decision-making roles in the justice system. We’re trying to educate people about racial history and the need for racial justice. We’re trying to confront abuse of power by the police and prosecutors.”
Rosa Parks responded: “Ooooh, honey, all that’s going to make you tired, tired, tired.” They all laughed, and then Ms. Johnnie Carr, the organizer of the bus boycott in Montgomery, said to Stevenson: “That’s why you’ve got to be brave, brave, brave.”
Stevenson has been brave. EJI has received multiple bomb threats. For years, financial support was iffy. Sometimes it has been difficult to recruit able lawyers for the modest salaries that EJI could afford to pay. The hours are long, and the work can be as soulwrenching as it is rewarding.
And EJI is doing it really, really well. They have been very effective in bringing about change in America’s criminal justice system. Several EJI appeals have reached the Supreme Court of the United States and have led to more humane treatment of children and mentally ill persons.
EJI is equally effective in providing direct help to their clients (for no fees, of course), both those on death row and others. For example, they have won relief for more than 115 (!) persons on death row, many of them innocent and others of them given unjust trials or unjust sentences.
Stevenson writes beautifully about the persons whom he and EJI are serving so effectively. The person who receives most attention in the book is Walter McMillian, a black man from Monroeville, Alabama. Monroeville is the home of Harper Lee, author of the classic To Kill a Mockingbird, and the parallels between McMillian’s experience and the experience of the novel’s Tom Robinson are remarkable. Both are black men who are found guilty of capital crimes they did not commit, Robinson of the rape of a white girl and McMillian of the murder of a white girl.
The fictional Robinson was killed while trying to escape. McMillian was sent in 1987 to death row in Holman Prison in Alabama.
That’s where Bryan Stevenson came onto the picture. After a series of legal actions, he secured the exoneration and release of McMillian, who in fact was at a church fish fry with numerous other people at the time the awful murder was committed. Neither his mistreatment by prosecutors nor his unjust six-year imprisonment on death row seems to have deprived McMillian of his dignity or of his wonderful sense of humor. He forgave those who demonized and abused him.
I wish I had the narrative skill to help you feel the humanity of the incarcerated persons whom Stevenson and his EJI are helping. Let me put it this way. In Chapter 10, Stevenson tells the story of Avery Jenkins. I will buy a chocolate milkshake for the first six people who read the story of Jenkins and his corrections officer without a getting a lump in their throats and without tearing up. Just write me at <fisherhumphreys@gmail. com>. Seriously.
