Essay Comparing Just Mercy And When They See Us

The justice system is not as fair as one would hope, the scales are tipped by coercion and unfair police tactics. While within, prison and juvenile conditions can be equally as harmful to those convicted. The book Just Mercy, by Bryan Stevenson, clearly portrays police officers careless of the federal criminal process and how prison conditions have failed those convicted. Similarly, on the show, When They See Us, police officers use their abuse of power to coerce young teens into admitting to crimes they did not commit, later leading them to struggle and be abused inside prison and jail. In both Just Mercy and When They See Us, the justice system attempts to follow the federal criminal process well, yet inmates are still abused by one another,

In When They See Us, while they did not investigate in a good manner and they reached a false conclusion, they did make sure to investigate all of them. The five boys involved were thoroughly investigated, Raymond Santana, Antron McCray, Yusef Salaam, and Korey Wise. The lead detective, Fairstien, also conducted a search of the crime scene. She went to the park, searching for evidence and looking at everything. From the marks left in the dirt, to the marks left on the victim's clothing. In Just Mercy, when a young lawyer, Bryan Stevenson, takes on Walter McMilians, a man who was wrongfully convicted for murder, Stevenson also conducts a thorough investigation. Even though Walter is already in jail, when Stevenson takes on his case, he starts at the beginning of the entire federal criminal process. Stevenson makes sure to review all aspects of Walters' case, before making any judgements. Even though his family had already made statements, Stevenson visits Walter and his family to get a sense of who he was and his whereabouts on the day of the murder. He listened to “testimonials about Walter, the town, race, the police, the trial” (pg. 1).