In the book Just Mercy, by Bryon Stevenson, he shares the story of his upbringing as a lawyer and company Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Alabama. Through his career, he was able to understand the full extent of mercy and its ability to bring out people’s humanity. Additionally, Stevenson argues how people who act upon prejudiced beliefs are just as broken as those who have been condemned to life in prison without parole and on death row, because they have all been defeated by a sense of hopelessness and animosity within their own lives. In my critique, I describe my new found understanding of the cruelty behind the death penalty. Moreso, the trauma and brutality it brings to all the players involved, especially to those who are placed on death row.
"It was far too easy to convict the wrongly accused man... send him to death row... and much too hard to win his freedom" -Bryan Stevenson. Hundreds of men and women have lost several years in prison throughout the 1900s to now in the United States. An example is in To Kill A Mockingbird, a famous novel, that sheds light on serious issues within the justice system. The protagonist, Scout( Jean Louise) Finch, discovers injustice surrounding black people in Alabama in 1930.
Bryan Stevenson knew the perils of injustice and inequality just as well as his clients on death row. He grew up in a poor, racially segregated area in Delaware and his great-grandparents had been slaves. While he was a law student, he had interned working for clients on death row. He realized that some people were treated unfairly in the judicial system and created the Equal Justice Institute where he began to take on prisoners sentenced to death as clients since many death row prisoners had no legal representation of any kind. In Just Mercy, Bryan Stevenson focuses on some of these true stories of injustice, mainly the case of his client, Walter McMillian.
Stevenson experiences injustice himself in Just Mercy. In the encounter, Stevenson was stopped by a police cruiser for no lawful reason. The officers then proceeded to point their guns at Stevenson although he was cooperating with the officers. They eventually let him go after illegally searching him: “‘We’re going to let you go. You should be happy’ he said”(Stevenson 42).
Abigail Glover Dr. Craton HONS March 5, 2023, In Cold Blood Justice was served to Dick and Perry after their killing of the Clutters, as the saying goes “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.” The Clutter’s had been murdered by Dick and Perry so Dick and Perry received the death penalty. Dick had a normal childhood with loving parents. He had no motive to murder the Clutter family once he knew there was no safe with money.
“You can’t understand most of the important things from a distance, Bryan. You have to get close”(Stevenson 13). This reality that Bryan Stevenson’s grandmother voices in Just Mercy expose the many issues that plague the criminal justice system today. How the alienation of the convicted causes a disconnect between the prosecutors and the persecuted, the lack of empathy and effort to get close to the ones who are most vulnerable. Only by utilizing empathy are we able to further resonate with the condemned as humans and understand the inhumane nature of the punishments we give.
This matters because it teaches the players to be more respectful. My second example of justice in Radio is when Coach Jones disciplined Johnny after he led Radio into the girl’s locker room. This affects the plot because it leads Johnny to a better path. My third and final example of justice
Max Belkin 2/26/2023 Injustice and inequality are persistent and major issues in America. A Lesson Before Dying shows what it is like for people experiencing these problems. A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines is a book that takes place in Louisiana in the late 1940s. In the book, a young man named Jefferson is wrongly accused of murder and gets sentenced to death. In the process, he feels dehumanized, so his godmother, Miss Emma, tasks the narrator, Grant Wiggins, with making Jefferson feel human again and allowing him to die with dignity.
In Bryan Stevenson’s Just Mercy, he writes to illustrate the injustices of the judicial system to its readers. To do so, Stevenson utilizes multiple writing styles that provide variety and helps keep the reader engaged in the topic. Such methods of his include the use of anecdotes from his personal experiences, statistics, and specific facts that apply to cases Stevenson had worked on as well as specific facts that pertain to particular states. The most prominent writing tool that Stevenson included in Just Mercy is the incorporation of anecdotes from cases that he himself had worked on as a nonprofit lawyer defending those who were unrightfully sentenced to die in prison.
Elie Wiesel once said, “What hurts the victim most is not the cruelty of the oppressor, by the silence of the bystander”. This quote means that being put through something so horrific as the holocaust concentration camps was not the worst part of the holocaust, but rather that people knew what was going on but never took action to stop this tragic event. The injustice of the people, mostly Jews, who had to go through the process of leaving everything behind and starting a new life where they were forced to work together in very unstable conditions is something that can never be payed back. This injustice lead to more than just the time and lives that we can't get back, it lead to dehumanization of innocent woman, children, men, elders, and
When stepping inside a hospital to receive help, one should expect care, treatment, and respect. However, shown in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and “Howl,” American society equates mental illness with inhumanity. In both texts, the characters are forced to live without basic human freedoms and a voice to change it. Society pressures the mentally ill into becoming submissive counterparts of the community by stripping away their physical freedoms, forcing inhumane treatment, and depriving them the freedom of expression. By pressuring confinement and treating the patients inhumanely, society strips away their freedom to express themselves.
Boom!! The familiar sound you hear throughout the night before rings again. You look over to your side and see your best friend lying on the ground, bleeding. Life saps out of his body as blood flows endlessly out of his body. Tears well up in your eyes.
The justice system that relies on twelve individuals reaching a life-or-death decision has many complications and dangers. The play Twelve Angry Men, by Reiginald Rose, illustrates the dangers of a justice system that relies on twelve people reaching a life-or-death decision because people are biased, they think of a jury system as an inconvenience, and many people aren’t as intelligent as others. The first reason why Reiginald illustrates dangers is because people can be biased or they can stereotype the defendant. The Jurors in Twelve Angry Men relate to this because a few of them were biased and several of them stereotyped the defendant for being from the slums. The defendant in this play was a 19 year old kid from the slums.
Injustice versus Justice in And Then There Were None Everyone has varying opinions on the definition of justice and injustice, and acts of which may be seen as fair or unfair to different individuals. A dictionary says that justice is the quality of being just; righteousness; equitableness; or moral rightness.
All of my goals derive from my passion for problem solving and helping others. As a result, I aspire to be a psychiatrist in order to help the mentally ill and help remove the negative connotations associated with mental disorders. In order to achieve these goals, I have dedicated myself to my academics and participated in extracurricular activities that develop my talents and allow me to solve problems creatively. By taking advanced courses I have expanded my knowledge and equipped myself with the necessary skills to succeed in a college environment. I have also dedicated myself to the engineering pathway courses, which have taught me to think creatively and resourcefully, and have improved my skills as a problem solver.
