A review by starrysteph
Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson

dark emotional hopeful informative reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

Just Mercy is a hard read. These stories - often bleak and enraging – will cling to you. 

But Bryan Stevenson has a beautiful voice, and he writes with care & hope. He shares honestly about moments of doubt & failure, but you’ll close the book knowing that everything is worth the fight. 

“Mercy is most empowering, liberating, and transformative when it is directed at the undeserving. The people who haven’t earned it, who haven’t even sought it, are the most meaningful recipients of our compassion.”

Bryan Stevenson founded the Equal Justice Initiative as a young lawyer – it’s a nonprofit based in Alabama with an initial focus on defending those with death sentences. As EJI grows, so does its reach: Stevenson and his partners challenge life sentences for children and all sorts of wrongful and unfair convictions, and bring current impacts of racism to light in new ways. 

This book highlights Walter McMillan - an innocent man given a death sentence - but branches out to include a myriad of cases as well as highlight the overarching pain of mass incarceration. 

I felt as though I got to know so many of these people – the incarcerated folks whom Stevenson worked so hard to protect and offer dignity to, their anguished yet beyond compassionate family members, the earnest and emotionally drained lawyers, the contemptuous prosecutors and judges, and so on. 

“The death penalty is not about whether people deserve to die for the crimes they commit. The real question of capital punishment in this country is, ‘Do we deserve to kill?’”

EJI is always drowning in casework, and there is a never ending stream of people coming through their door in desperate need of help. The system is cruel to everyone, but especially to poor people; people of color; disabled people; mentally ill people; and all their intersections.

One of the central people discussed is McMillan, an innocent man who was treated unfairly at every turn. It’s a shocking and compelling case, and it’s agonizing to read about all the intentional abuses of America’s legal and police systems.

But what I found more striking were the calls for mercy for those incarcerated people who did do what they were accused of. “Do we deserve to kill?” he asks. (I think not.) 

This is a book filled with compassion, grace, resilience, and power. 

CW: racism, execution, death, murder, police brutality, slurs, torture, confinement, guns, rape, abuse in all forms, ableism, drug use & addiction, pregnancy, miscarriage, mental illness, panic attacks, psychosis, self harm, suicide, pedophilia, misogyny, vomit, excrement, infidelity

Follow me on TikTok for book recommendations!