Bryan Stevensons Grandfather's Murder

The author of Just Mercy, Bryan Stevenson, shares many moments of his career throughout his book. One devastating experience he faced was his grandfather’s murder. Throughout chapter 14 and other chapters of Just Mercy, Stevenson explains that the lives of these children committing these crimes and being put on death row couldn’t be looked at as their fault without it really being evaluated. The lives of these children before being put on death row, were abusive, not safe, and terrible parental supervision. Stevenson explains to readers that the criminal justice law can’t blame them if this is how they were raised. They don’t know better than to do crime or be sucked into committing crimes for others. According to the text, “Joe Sullivan

The kids who had committed the murder of his grandfather were once again not raised in a stable environment to teach them to not commit an awful crime. Stevenson states, “My grandfather’s murder left us with so many questions. Now, decades later, I was starting to understand”(Stevenson 221). He also states, “On top of all the stresses all teens experience, those who grow up in poor, or in environments marked by abuse, violence, dysfunction, or neglect are vulnerable to this sort of extremely poor decision making”(Stevenson 222). These show how after the murder of his grandfather, it changed his understanding of children commiting crimes and where it all starts from. Even though the murder of Stevenson’s grandfather was so devasting and sad for him and his family, he continues to believe that the kids weren’t born with a mind to want to commit crimes, they were raised to not know

He also explains how the law’s hypocrisy with the age restrictions for drinking, driving, or even buying guns because of the low maturity level, but doesn’t isn’t the same for putting young kids on death row. The book states, “We asked courts to recognize that passing such a judgment on children below a certain age is not reasonable. They are human works in progress”(Stevenson 222). The book also states, “We emphasized the hypocrisy of not allowing children to smoke, drink, vote, drive without restrictions while simultaneously treating some of the most at-risk, neglected children exactly the same as full-grown adults in the criminal justice system”(Stevenson 222-223). This shows how Stevenson wants readers to know that they can’t blame the children for these faults. Stevenson explains that if people are gonna blame someone for the crimes of these children, blame the criminal justice system for putting them in harsh, adult jails rather than helping them better grow up in a safe, helpful learning