Summary Of Just Mercy By Bryan Stevenson

The book “Just Mercy” by Bryan Stevenson is very moving. It highlights the many different injustices that are going on within the American criminal justice system, specifically regarding race and socioeconomic status. Stevenson provides personal experiences with representing individuals on death row, including Walter McMillian, which left me with an eye-opener of what is happening within the justice system and how truly devastating some of the stories were.

Throughout the book, Stevenson leaves the reader to question their own biases and assumptions about crime through his different experiences within the field, including myself. Something that left me in awe was the dedication Stevenson had to fight for those who have been overlooked by society and not given the chance to fight for themselves. Throughout the book, I found myself agreeing with the critiques made by Stevenson about the issues within the legal system. For example, having to rely on overly harsh sentencing and the lack of proper legal representation for those who cannot afford a

This means that if you are black and behind the wheel, it increases your chances of getting stopped and frisked for even minor issues. Multiple studies proved that “African Americans are more likely to be stopped, frisked, searched, and arrested” (Prior & Jones, 2018, p. 196), which was the case for a young black teenager in the Gadsden community. The boy was a new driver and was stopped for a minor traffic violation while running a red light. When he was trying to reach for his ID in his bag below his feet, the officer said he was reaching for a weapon and shot him dead while in his seat (Stevenson, 2014, p. 42). The term “driving while black” plays a huge role in this one story, especially because if this boy was not black he would not have been shot for reaching down to grab his ID, and maybe would not have even been stopped by the police in the first