Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption

Genre: Non-Fiction

This is the true life story of Bryan Stevenson a Harvard University Law School graduate, African American lawyer working in Alabama to help men, women and children wrongly incarcerated in jail, sometimes on death row, get the legal help they need to upend their convictions. Using specific stories to describe his client's crimes, trials and convictions, Stevenson, describes how he and his team were sometimes successful in changing the convictions, and sometimes they weren’t. Stevenson is particularly moved by the young people he encounters and their plights. Like the story of Tina Garnett whose mother died of cancer when she was under ten years old and her father started sexually abusing her and her sisters. When her sisters ran away, she remained his sole target. At 16 years old, she ran around the streets as much as she could to avoid any interactions with her father. One evening, she and her friends broke into another friend’s home who was having a sleepover. The house was dark so Tina lit a match and accidentally started a fire, which killed one of the kids at the sleepover. Tina, was traumatized and was unable to speak for herself. Her lawyers did a minimal job of researching her history and Tina was sentenced to life imprisonment without the chance of parole. Tina was just sixteen years old.

Stevenson’s story is of his efforts to help African Americans and poverty stricken individuals who cannot help themselves. He says that the system is clearly racially biased, but even more so, he says, “My work with the poor and the incarcerated has persuaded me that the opposite of poverty is not wealth; the opposite of poverty is justice...The true measure of our character is how we treat the poor, the disfavored, the accused, the incarcerated, and the condemned.” This one will stay with me. It’s a hard, serious read. It’s a must read. Enough said! By the way, there is a YA version of this book that might work well for the younger folks.