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The Memoir Of Just Mercy By Bryan Stevenson

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According to The University of Michigan's law education, African Americans are seven times more likely than white Americans to be falsely convicted of serious crimes due to their race (law.umich.edu). Bryan Stevenson who is a human rights lawyer and author wrote the memoir by the name of Just Mercy. This piece focuses on the idea that the criminal justice system is discriminatory. In this memoir, he defends and fights for citizens to protect their rights as a person. Bryan Stevenson beautifully utilizes strong word choice, repetition, and emotional appeal to emphasize and persuade the readers that the efforts to fight institutional cruelty and raise the most vulnerable to a “higher ground” is what matters most. By inserting strong word choices in Stevenson's literature it emphasizes the emotions and pressure he was experiencing due to the cases he had to work with. Words such as anguish and misery highlight the tensity he was feeling while trying to defend the innocent and convicted children. For Example, …show more content…

Bryan Stevenson thinks these children become dehumanized and only viewed as adult criminals and as a result society and how it offers no sympathy. Stevenson has experienced a lot of discrimination in his life seeing these cases stack up is affecting him emotionally. For example, “I do what I do because I’m broken, too. My years of struggling against inequality, abusive power, poverty, oppression, and injustice had finally revealed something to me about myself” (Stevenson 290). Stevenson knows what it feels like to be in their situation and has gained the motivation to do what's right to help these innocent people. Seeing these cases is hurting him because he knows that this is a major problem that needs to be fixed. This is where he comes into

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Throughout this captivating memoir, Stevenson shares a few of the many cases he was involved with and witnessed. His main goal in the begging was to create a nonprofit business where people could get lawyers for no charge. This business reached out mostly to the black community. When inmates were desperate

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In his novel, Stevenson references Alabama judge’s ability to overrule a jury’s decision to sentence

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In Just Mercy, Bryan Stevenson tells a first person account of his years defending the people who were wrongly convicted or punished by the US justice system. At the heart of the novel is the story of Walter McMillian, a man wrongly convicted of murder and sent to death row. Throughout the novel, Stevenson presents examples of individuals who were wrongfully punished due to racism and discrimination. He shows the readers how our criminal justice system unfairly impacts members of the Black community. He also highlights the destruction and devastation this can cause.

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This quote implements readers to pity Sullivan because he was locked in bars at such a young age that he never received that chance to mature and grow. Whilst Stevenson delves into Joe Sullivan, he goes on to find the connection between himself and Sullivan. When Bryan was sixteen years old, his grandfather had been murdered. No one could make sense of his murder which left him with numerous unanswered questions. As the years went by, Stevenson came to realize, “...that these shocking and senseless crimes couldn’t be evaluated honestly without understanding the lives these children had been forced to endure” (221).

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674 Words | 3 Pages

Throughout the novel Stevenson talks about the failures of the criminal justice system, telling the stories of victims of horrible injustices. Stevenson uses ethos as a technique to pursuade the readers to feel the injustnice of the criminal system while showing his credibility of the topic and theme. Stevenson appeals to the audiences ethics showing his first hand experience’s of what is wrong with the social justice system. Stevenson shows his credibility throughout the novel by showing his background in education at harvard law. He also shows his credibility by his years of experience by working for the equal justice initiative.

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973 Words | 4 Pages

Stevenson's mom was the one that led him to realize that he was in the wrong for his

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Even though it’s nonfiction, it reads much like a fiction novel would, getting comparisons to ¬To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. What makes it even more compelling than the fictional novel is that these are the stories of real people, of those wrongly convicted or unfairly sentenced. Stevenson’s memoir truly shows the power of mercy and what it can do for those wronged by judiciaries. This book’s story of justice and redemption and Stevenson’s struggle to free convicts from unjust or excessive punishment is deeply moving and powerful. The reader will root for him as he struggles to do as much as he can for the accused.

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Kayla Parriman Professor Dexheimer Intro to Criminal Justice April 16, 2024 Just Mercy “Just Mercy” by Bryan Stevenson’s is a nonfiction book, specifically a memoir about Stevenson’s career as a lawyer and talks about his experiences as a lawyer defending disadvantaged clients. It focuses on judicial injustice in the United States and alternates chapters between Stevenson's efforts to overturn the wrongful conviction of Walter McMillian and his work on other cases. Bryan Stevenson is an American lawyer, social justice activist, law professor at New York University of Law, and the founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative. He has won United States Supreme Court decisions against mandatory sentences of death or life

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1036 Words | 5 Pages

Without representation of his race, Herbert was going to be racially discriminated against. The same problem follows for Avery who was also not properly represented by his lawyer. Many of Stevenson's client's original attorneys did little to no investigation into their background, causing most of them to appear guilty without question. This flaw in the judicial system is what caused the spike in number of the incarcerated. Without proper legal representation and fair juries, many defendants appear guilty and are sent to

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One of the victims of his racism was Geraldine. The news of the perpetrator being Linden Lark to Joe was like pouring gasoline into an already burning fire. “Every day since the grocer, I wished I had brained Lark. I imagined myself killing him over and over” (Erdrich 249). A significant difference between an adult and a child is the ability for self-control.

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1/5/23 Racial injustice has been a prominent issue in the American criminal justice system for centuries prior to Bryan Stevenson's entry in the criminal justice world. Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption, goes in depth on specific unjust criminal charges based on racial assumptions. Bryan Stevenson does work on ending these suffrages and freeing clients who have been unfairly accused on death row. Throughout the book, Stevenson addresses systemic racism through examples of jury selection, several case studies of unfairly incarcerated individuals, and police brutality which his advocacy for inmates overcomes by creating racial justice within the criminal justice system.

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442 Words | 2 Pages

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.

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637 Words | 3 Pages

There are many victims of unfortunate circumstances in the world today, yet some of these results could have been easily avoided. In the novel, Just Mercy, the author Bryan Stevenson addresses many cases in which children under the age of 18 are incarcerated within the adult criminal justice system. By treating children as adults in the criminal justice system their innocence and undeveloped person, become criminalized. These children become dehumanized and only viewed as full-fledged criminals and as a result society offers no chance sympathy towards them. Stevenson argues that children tried as adults have become damaged and traumatized by this system of injustice.

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997 Words | 4 Pages

Bryan Stevenson never knew what could happen and he was full of fear of the possibility of jail time or death. Herbert Richardson was a mentally ill person who didn’t get the help he needed, and due to that, he killed little girl and was executed. During that time, the mentally ill lost most of its funding, and because of that, those who needed help couldn’t get it. Richardson and other mentally ill people didn’t have much money and lived in poverty. Without justice, the world would become nothing but poverty, despair and fear, and the only ones who wouldn’t be affected are the

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474 Words | 2 Pages

The entire work helps the reader feel empathy and distress. Stevenson uses the reader's emotions to promote a greater understanding of social injustice in the United States legal system. Grabbing the attention of his audience, Stevenson introduces Walter, who was undoubtedly wrongfully convicted, as well as anecdotes about children convicted/sentenced to death leaving the readers sad and mixed with emotions. Every case Stevenson writes about helps the reader realize the unfairness of the criminal

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