Review of
Just
Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption, by Bryan Stevenson
Instaread summary
Five out of five stars
There is no
wider difference between liberals and conservatives than the debate over the
death penalty. Liberals understand that the criminal justice system is arbitrarily
unfair and selectively overpunishes the poor. They know that innocent people
have been executed and they care about that. Therefore, they oppose it.
Conservatives understand all of the same things, included the fact that
innocent people have been executed and they don’t care. They consider it an
acceptable cost of punishing the criminals.
Reading about
the systemic and specific failures of the criminal justice system can be
depressing, yet it is essential that the word get out and more minds changed
regarding the problems. Specifically how minorities are selectively arrested
and incarcerated. More recently, with the reduced funding for mental health
treatment, many of the mentally ill are now behind bars for lack of any other
place to put them.
Bryan Stevenson
is a brilliant attorney that has spent a career defending Alabama prisoners
that have been condemned to death. The main case discussed in this legal memoir
is that of Walter McMillian, a black man falsely convicted of killing a woman
and sentenced to death. However, the book covers much more than that, dealing
with potent issues such as discrimination, fraud, lying and career opportunism
among the police, corrections officers and the
prosecutors.
Reading through
this summary will move anyone in possession of empathy to sadness. It is very
concise and gives you a clear understanding of the often absurd machinations of
all aspects of the legal system. Some people may be content to just read this
summary, not wanting to learn more of the “gory details” of how systemic the
problems are. From reading this summary, I am convinced that this is a book
that should be read by all as there is a growing movement for reform of the
criminal justice system that it will nurture.
This book was made available for free for review
purposes
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