Brian Stevenson Just Mercy Sparknotes

Have you ever needed something so desperately and you still didn’t get it?We learn how the incarcerated people in the book Just Mercy have been denied their medical attention, even though they had pleaded. The book was written by Brian Stevenson, who is a Criminal Defense Lawyer. It reveals the truth of the unfair actions made by the Criminal Justice system. Its inadequacy in medical treatment is certainly a prime contribution to the deaths of many prisoners each year. We learn how some people were denied the very thing they need to survive, their medication they need to help them wake up the next morning. Stevenson uses the help of primary documents and individual stories to suggest how being denied medical attention by the

Ruffin's case highlights the issue of inadequate medical care in prisons. Stevenson views it from primary documents which reveals that he was unable to acquire his asthma medications and inhaler after being beaten up by police. Deaths that occur inside of jails and prisons were not uncommon especially when it is health related. After Ruffin’s passing, Stevenson decides to read into the case and also take into consideration the witnesses who were there when at the scene. When he arrived at the city jail badly bruised and bleeding, Mr. Ruffin told the other inmates that he was desperately in need of his inhaler and asthma medications.
When I started investigating the case, inmates at the jail told me they saw officers beating Mr. Ruffin before taking him to an isolation cell. Several hours later they saw medical personnel remove his body from the cell on a gurney. Despite the reforms of the 1970’s and early
1980’s inmate death in jails and prisons was still a serious problem.
Suicide, prisoner on prisoner violence, inadequate medical care, staff abuse,and guard violence claimed the lives of hundreds of prisoners every year

He was a 13 year old by the time he was convicted of robbery and rape. As he was in jail, they kept him in a 4 by 4 length cage in order to ‘secure’ him while he was also on a wheelchair.

The cage was so small that when his guards tried to remove his wheelchair, they couldn't budge it. They tugged at the chair with loud grunts and tried to force it free but it was completely stuck. I could hear Joe crying. He occasionally made a whining sound, and his shoulders jerked up and down. When the staff proposed turning the cage on its side, he moaned audibly. Two inmate trusties lifted and tilted the heavy cage while three officers. The guards gave each other high fives, the inmate trusties walked away silently, and Joe sat motionless in his chair in the middle of the room, looking down at his feet