Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption

Book: Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption
Basic Information : Synopsis : Characters : Expectations : Thoughts : Evaluation : Book Group : New Words : Book References : Good Quotes : Table of Contents : References

Basic Information:

Author: Bryan Stevenson

Edition: ePub on Overdrive from the Mountain View Public Library

Publisher: Random House

ISBN: 0812994523 (ISBN13: 9780812994520)

Start Date: October 27, 2019

Read Date: November 8, 2019

Read Date: May 8, 2025 - for my Book Group

336 pages

Genre: History, Biography, Interracial Understanding

Language Warning: None

Rated Overall: 4 ½ out of 5

History: 3 out of 5

Synopsis (Caution: Spoiler Alert-Jump to Thoughts):

The author follows his career as a lawyer in the south fighting to bring justice to a people whose trial did not bring justice. It particularly follows Walter McMillian who was condemned to death with a lying jail snitch and manufactured evidence, even though there was testimony that he was at a different event at the time. The book walks through what it took to right this wrong.

Stevenson also looks at other cases where the mentally ill or the young was condemned to death to talk about how this was not bringing justice, but a sense of vengeance. Or where laws and the action of enforcement was beyond the measure which made sense.

He concludes with how there needs to be just mercy rather than a reliance on a hammer.

Cast of Characters:

• Bryan Stevenson-author, lawyer, main character
• Walter McMillian-wrongly convicted. On death row
• Robert E. Lee Key-the judge for McMillian’s trial
• Minnie McMillian-wife
• Karen Kelly-white woman who McMillian became intimate with
• And many others

Expectations:

• Recommendation: I heard about Bryan Stevenson through another book called The Sun Does Shine by Anthony Ray Hinton. It was Bryan Stevenson who eventually took on Hinton’s case
• Date Became Aware of Book: April 9, 2018
• How come do I want to read this book: Stevenson sounded interesting in the book. Then saw the book in a bookstore in Mountain View.
• What do I think I will get out of it? Better understanding of the criminal system, particularly capital punishment.

Thoughts:

Added May 2025:

Prologue for the 10^th Anniversary Edition

Talks about Kenny Smith who suffered through two failed injections because the executioners could not find his veins. The pain he suffered because of going through several hours of being inflicted with needles. When those failed, he was given nitrous oxide and eventually suffocated on the gas and his own vomit. There was another failed injection-Alan Miller. A Joe James was eventually killed, but after several hours of injections tries.

In the last ten years, there has been a decline in the number of executions, with some states abolishing the death penalty. Also some states have banned life imprisonment for children.

He talks about how the Equal Justice Initiative has expanded to include memorials and a museum. He says that the struggle must continue when he sees things like Kenny Smith happening.

 

Introduction: Higher Ground

Interesting, when Stevenson was in school, he was interested in public policy. But what school, Harvard particularly, taught him was how to run an efficient and effective program, how to evaluate a program and maximize benefits while minimizing costs. But not so much in where the benefits went or why or what public good it would do.

When Stevenson first went to Alabama to intern with the Southern Prisoners Defense Committee, he did not realize he would be living on a shoestring. He also did not realize he would be making a real difference.

Stevenson’s grandmother’s words of wisdom was You can’t understand most of the important things from a distance… You have to get close.

The author lays out what is important to him:

• There are thousands of people on death row.
• Executions have been performed in a variety of ways of which none are humane.
• There are kids on death row
• There are kids who are serving life in imprison.

We as a people are implicated when we allow others to be mistreated

Each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve ever done.

.

Chapter 1 Mockingbird Players

Stevenson is given his first case: Walter McMillian. Also the first inkling about the resistance he will get when the judge of the case called him and told him to drop it. Talked about who Walter was and what happened at the trial.

Stevenson notes that the county where Walter McMillian is is where Harper Lee, of To Kill a Mockingbird fame, lived. The county celebrates her as an author, but throughout the book Just Mercy it becomes evident that it did not learn the lesson of the book.

Chapter 2 Stand

Living arrangements and the start of a project to take care of the needs of those on death row. But also his own experience with the Atlanta police.This got him to thinking, how prepared are people to meet police in a high stress situation? In a meeting, he met an older, wheelchair bound person who told him he was beating the drum of justice.

Stevenson who is a lawyer had stopped in front of his apartment late one night. He lingered in his car when the police pulled up and ordered him out of the car. His instinct was to run even when the police had the gun on him. He was 24 years old. If he thought of running, what about a young black man, particularly if there is a record on him? It gives me some perspective about why blacks run from police.

When he talks in a church, an old black man tells him that he is beating the drum for justice. This is an old civil rights phrase. This invokes the phrase which Martin Luther King, Jr used in a sermon, two months before his death Yes, if you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice. Say that I was a drum major for peace. I was a drum major for righteousness. And all of the other shallow things will not matter Stanford’s King Institute

Chapter 3 Trials and Tribulation

This chapter details the arrest, the evidence and the trail of Walter. Also even though Walter had not gone to trial yet, he was placed on death row to await trial.

Chapter 4 The Old Rugged Cross

Stevenson reviews several of his first death row cases. These were places which he was still trying to get organized, and gaining an understanding what it meant to work on death row cases. He realized this was his purpose.

Sounded like his new venture was started off with a wing and a prayer, but little money.

Most people do not know when their last day is. But a person on death row does. They get waited on. People who were uncaring are kind. There is discomfort for all when carrying out an execution.

Chapter 5 Of the Coming of John

There was no way which Walter could have killed the girl-too many witnesses able to say he was not there. They lived way outside of town. All of the relatives wanted to vouch for Walter. On the other hand, even with a new DA, the legal establishment was against Walter and reopening the case.

One of the stories in The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B. Du Bois had a person going away to study to be a teacher. It is by his understanding that the community where he came from had hopes about him being successful and coming back to teach. Stevenson realized that there was some parallel to im-not that he was raised in Alabama, but that there was a lot of hopes being placed on him.

Stevenson when he went to visit Walter never felt that his time was wasted or unproductive. That is a wonderful attribute to place on Walter.

When someone comes forward with evidence showing that Walter could be innocent, Stevenson finds this disorienting to his sense of justice. He also wonders what they will do when he presses the case harder.

Chapter 6 Surely Doomed

Stevenson gets a call from a grandmother about her grandson who has shot his mother’s abusive boyfriend. He talks about meeting the boy-in an adult prison. Stevenson relates what happened and how this case was resolved.

Is a 16 or 17 old a child?

When one of his people is set free, a family takes him in. Stevenson tries to lower expectations, but the family points out that we all have been through alot. But if we don’t expect more from each other, hope better for one another, and recover from the hurt we experience, we are surely doomed.

Chapter 7 Justice Denied

He takes Walter’s case to the State’s Appeals Court. There he was met with silence for the most part. He then has help on the case and is able to interview more of the witnesses. This led to another murder, while not really connected, it gave insight in how Walter’s case was prosecuted. As he went through the investigation, it became more evident that there was misconduct on the State’s part. Stevenson requested a new trial and was granted a rehearing.

Chapter 8 All God's Children

This chapter goes through how when a crime is committed, or at least attributed to a person under 18, and a lot of times under 16, there are circumstances which helped to explain what happened. I do not think Stevenson excuses the crime, but uses it as an explanation and why there should be something done differently than incarceration. The places range from Philadelphia, New York and Los Angeles.

Chapter 9 I'm Here

The Rule 32 hearing-this is about the evidence in the original hearing-on Walter’s case takes place. Many of the original witnesses recanted their testimonies.

A Mrs. Williams who was a pretty old black lady had been barred from going into the courtroom for the McMillian hearing, On the second day, she was in. Her presence said to Stevenson that she was there because she had a vision of justice that compels me to be a witness. Stevenson understood from her presence that this was the reason he was here-to help bring justice to a man.

Chapter 10 Mitigation

Stevenson opens the chapter by saying that America’s prisons have become warehouses for the mentally ill. He goes on and talks about the prisons are being crowded by wrong-headed drug policies and excessive sentencing. But that the mentally ill is a driving force in this. I am thinking of when Ronald Reagan was the governor of California, he closed the insane asylums and released many of these people out onto the streets. This was because many of the institutions were more places to house people than to remedy the condition. With Stevenson’s assertion, I am wondering if we have come full circle.

There is a bit more which I am understanding from Stevensn’s comments. He notes that the combined events of blacks having served in the armed forces during WWII and the desegregation of the schools, the white South rose up and started making more segregation symbolism-statues and Confederate flags on top of capitals. There is more than commemorating the past with these symbols, it is trying to push forward the past into the present, trying to resurrect a time when those “other” people were not as privileged as whites.

Noted that we excuse and help those with physical disability, appropriately enough, but those with mental disabilities are judged more by their defects and failures. We do not accommodate this in our criminal justice system. I do not think Stevenson is saying excuse crimes, but understand why the crime and make sure the punishment also leads more to a remedy than a housing situation.

Chapter 11 I'll Fly Away

He starts the chapter with the threats to both the agency working with death row inmates as well as himself. These were not idle threats as others in the law had died after threats. He received the ruling on the Rule 32 hearing-denying a retrial. Stevenson felt he would be going to the appeals court anyway. There began to be publicity about the case as news leaked out about what the trial was like. The State then sent independent investigators to look over the case. The Appeals Court invalidated the original trial and said he needed to be retried. Instead the district attorney did not oppose a motion to dismiss the charges. Walter got out. But his wife no longer wanted to be with him. Also it was best to remain away until things calmed down.

No lie can live forever and this has always been one big lie. Referring to Walter

When Stevenson finally convinced a court that Walter had had a trial which did not reflect justice, he says that I didn’t realize how much I had feared that we would lose until we finally won. When something good happens, that is when you realize how bad things were.

Walter when he hears the good news, his heart is in such as way that he wants two things: 1) to meet everybody who has helped him. 2) He wants good food.

Stevenson uses the term laugh of liberation. I take it that Walter and him could enjoy an unrestrained laugh. The restraint of knowing that he could die soon was released.

The miscarriage of justice had created permanent injuries. Not just the six years which Walter lost. But in all of the stuff which came out, it was that Walter had cheated on his wife. Minnie would not be reconciled to him. It would never be the same for Walter. As Stevenson said, no lie can live forever.

Chapter 12 Mother, Mother

Another chapter where Stevenson explores where justice is not served, or at least not in measure to the crime. This time it is about a mother of six whose child was stillborn. The question of stillborn and an infant who died shortly after birth comes into question.

Not sure about Stevenson’s statement-that a person was dirt poor, but that she had compensated for the possessions not available with giving them her heart. I look at it that the heart is the primary thing you can give your children. That is what they will remember the most, not the possessions you give them..

Redefining what muder is concerning a pregnant mother-environment being the womb and its surrounding and child to include the fetus. Somehow, fetus sounds so impersonal while child sounds so human. I wonder what Stevenson would say about his own-I do not know his family life and background. So this is not meant to be insensitive to him. Ust pondering how we turn words to emphasize what we want.

Stevenson’ main point is that we have redefined murder to include when a woman harms her unborn child. This includes taking drugs during pregnancy. He calls this the “untouchable” class. I do not think it is similar to India’s untouchables though. At least I do not see the similarities.

Chapter 13 Recovery

There was publicity in Walter’s release, more than most of the other wrongful conviction releases. The thing which was apparent was the story counter to the American sense of fair justice. There was also after effects-just being on death row watching men who became his acquaintances affected Walter. Walter did not receive any compensation for being wrongly convicted.Walter would accompany Stevenson to many of Stevenson’ speaking engagements. Walter was getting more and more disoriented.

Walter after being released told Stevenson how much stress living under the threat of execution and watching other men being executed had on him. It was not relieved after his release. There was still effects, even as he tried to move forward.

Chapter 14 Cruel and Unusual

Stevenson starts with the story of a 13 year old, Joe Sullivan, who was tried and convicted of sexual assault, while his older accomplishes got a much more lenient sentence. He was put into an adult prison for life. He ended up in a wheelchair. When Stevenson came to visit him, he was in a small cage, so small his wheelchair could not be freed from it. More children convicted of crimes and sentenced to long prison sentences were brought forward. To put into context he talks about his own grandfather being killed by a juvenile. It was only through exploring these kids lives did he start to understand his own grandfather’s murders.

Stevenson’s grandfather had been murdered during a house robber of his television set when he was 86 years old. This left a lasting mark on Stevenson and his family. It left many questions. Those questions started coming together as he worked with death row inmates. One of the things is that you cannot understand the act without understanding the background of the person.

Chapter 15 Broken

In the meantime, Walter was deteriorating-sounded like a form of dementia. He was placed in a nursing home where he thought he was back on death row. Stevenson goes through and talks about execution by injection. Then Stevenson meets the realization why he is doing the work he is doing-because as broken as the men and women he is serving, he himself is broken as we all are.

This chapter is based upon a revelation which Stevenson had concerning his place in his organization. He realized that the organization had grown. Others could do and were capable of doing what he did. Being tired and depressed about the failures he was ready to leave. What stopped him. He realized that it was not the organization needing him, but he needed his role in bringing justice for others. Being close to executions, showed his own brokenness. He says that We are all broken by something. We have all hurt someone and have been hurt. We all share the condition of brokenness…

Thomas Merton: We are bodies of broken bones. The fuller quote is: As long as we are on earth, the love that unites us will bring us suffering by our very contact with one another, because this love is the resetting of a body of broken bones. Even saints cannot live with saints on this earth without some anguish. There are two things which men can do about the pain of disunion with other men. They can love or they can hate. From New Seeds of Contemplation, pg 72

Each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve ever done. I usually phrase it that if we believe the Bible, then each of us have the image of God in us. And just that image, no matter how shaded it is, is brighter than the worst of our sin. It is up to us to honor Christ in us and let that light shine a bit brighter. Stevenson goes on and says that When you experience mercy, you learn things that are hard to learn otherwise. This is part of him which is getting rejuvenated

The title of the book comes from The power of just mercy is that it belongs to the undeserving. It’s when mercy is least expected that its most potent--strong enough to break the cycle of victimization and victimhood, retribution and suffering. This is what Stevenson is trying to get across-mercy in justice can change people and situations. What Stevenson really does not talk about is how to administer it. Is it to be done selectively or as a blanket? What criteria?

Chapter 16 The Stone catchers' Song of Sorrow

Several cases Stevenson worked on reached the Supreme Court, further defining what was cruel and unusual. He talked about the Anthony Ray Hinton case. He also started working on race and poverty issues, finding that they were closely connected to crime. His agency crew larger and better able to handle the cases coming in. He also talked about race and justice and what shaped how it was administered. At the end of one case, Stevenson meets a woman who sits on a bench and comforts people. She calls herself a stone catcher-catches the stones thrown at people. She says that is what Stevenson is doing.

Stevenson mentions another case he was working on-Anthony Ray Hinton. This is how I was introduced to Stevenson. I read Hinton’s book called The Sun Does Shine. While Stevenson has the view of a person trying to make sure justice is given, Hinton has the view of a man who needed justice. They are good complimentary views.

Stevenson found that working on race and poverty issues dovetailed which his work on criminal justice. He felt that there were four things which shaped America’s approach to race and justice:

1. Slavery-to blacks,
2. Reign of terror. Terrorism was not new. They had been dealing with the police, the Klan and any white person who felt they got slighted by a black.
3. Jim Crow Laws. This set up how blacks had to act or be in violation of at least custom, if not law. This is somewhat the the legacy of profiling.
4. Mass incarceration.

Epilogue

Walter’s eulogy along with what does a just mercy mean.

He uses the terms anguished of stressed lives and pain of the oppressed people. That these things if gathered together could fuel and ignite some impossible actions. He terms that maybe transformational redemption.

Walter asks, do you ever think about dying? He means specifically how you will die, when you will die. Being on death row, watching men prepare to die and men dying gets that into your thought pattern. He then goes on that people are supposed to die on God’s schedule. While Walter is talking about death row, in some ways, we have gotten away from this as well. We extended out death in every conceivable way to avoid dying.

A basic question in capital punishment: Do we deserve to kill? This is central to the book. How we convict and sentence tells us about how we are as a people.

Stevenson comments about Walter: it was just mercy towards others that allowed him to recover a life worth celebrating, a life that rediscovered the love and freedom that all humans desire a life that overcame death and condemnation with it was time to die on God’s schedule. A good way to conclude.

Evaluation:

There is a feel good message in Just Mercy, but there is also a lot of discomfort in the book. The book is about Bryan Stevenson’s mission to provide justice to those who have not had a fair shake with the justice system. He works principally in the South with some cases talked in California or further up the Eastern seacoast. The story principally follows his effort to get a fair trial for Walter McMillian, a man on death row who did not get a fair trial. He is successful in getting him released.

And the discomfort? As much as I like to think that in most cases, the courts are fair, Stevenson exposes how justice may rest on the needs of political characters, on the need to appear strong against crime, the need to preserve a certain ways of thinking. In the process people are condemned to death row, the mentally ill are given death sentences without regard to their condition. Mothers of stillborn children not only have to grieve their loss, but fight against being convicted of murder. Justice in America is not guilty or not guilty, but one which has baggage which goes with it.

Stevenson does a good job telling his story and the weaknesses of the system. But he is a bit weak on what remedies there are. He is against the use of the death penalty. He does not really go into what remedies there are. So after reading the book, I realize this is more of a starting place than a conclusion. It is a book, which allows one to start exploring what should be done.

 
Notes from my book group:
Added May 2025:

What struck you most about this book? 1. Is there anything about which you think or feel differently as a result of reading Just Mercy? (MPL)

For those of you who have worked within the justice system, did this book accurately reflect your experiences?

 

Stevenson introduction has wisdom from his grandmother: You can’t understand most of the important things from a distance… You have to get close. How does that influence Stevenson’s approach to helping his clients?

 

Stevenson opens with that where this story of Wayne McMullian takes place is in Monroeville, Alabama. This is where Harper Lee, of To Kill A Mockingbird, home town. What similarities does Stevenson try to draw between the two stories? Are their differences between McMullian and Robinson’s stories? Is Stevenson’s comparison fair to Monroeville?

 

Which details of McMullin’s case were most difficult for you to accept? Was it difficult to believe that this could really happen? (MPL)

 

Do you think there is a uniform level of justice throughout the United States? Throughout your locality? What areas of justice differenitation do you see? Do you think your home town a fair trial could be provided to a person accused of a horrendous crime?

 

In a meeting, Stevenson is told that he is beating the drum of justice. What is the drum of justice​. What was the wheelchair bound man refering to? Why did this needs to be done? Is there a need today? Note the MLK statement Yes, if you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice. Say that I was a drum major for peace. I was a drum major for righteousness. And all of the other shallow things will not matter February 4, 1968 sermon at the Ebenezer Baptist Church

 

What constitutes a fair trail?

 

How does Stevenson define Just Mercy? (The power of just mercy is that it belongs to the undeserving. It’s when mercy is least expected that its most potent--strong enough to break the cycle of victimization and victimhood, retribution and suffering.) How would you define this term? Can justice be provided if you provide mercy? Or are they opposites of each other? What is the place of personal responsibility?

 

A group called Christians for Social Action calls Stevenson a committed Christian. Do you see a message in the book for Christians to consider? Later on in the interview, Stevenson says that I’ve never met anybody about whom I could say, “This person is beyond redemption—his life has no value, no meaning, no purpose—and it is morally justifiable to kill him.” How do you react to that statement?

 

Stevenson laments that “the opposite of poverty is not wealth; the opposite of poverty, in too many places, is justice.” How do you feel when you read those words? Do you agree that “wealth, not culpability, shapes outcomes” in our justice system? (MPL)

 

Stevenson notes in his book that “the opposite of poverty is not wealth; the opposite of poverty is justice.” How did poverty play a pivotal role in the lives of the people in the book? (BLO)

 

Should mercy be applied to all wrong doing? Who gets to apply mercy? Under what conditions?

 

How does the way justice is administered show the character of a society?

 

Throughout the book we are presented with examples of courts refusing to review new evidence or to grant new trials in light of new information, defending their decision with “it’s too late.” Why wouldn’t courts jump to analyze new information with the constitutional promise of “innocent until proven guilty”? What is holding them back and what can be done to reverse this hindering stance? (BLO)

 

When have you experienced mercy? What form did it take? When you experience mercy, you learn things that are hard to learn otherwise. What did you learn by your experiencing mercy?

 

The power of just mercy is that it belongs to the undeserving. It’s when mercy is least expected that its most potent--strong enough to break the cycle of victimization and victimhood, retribution and suffering. Talk about this statement. Is there any situation where a person deserves mercy? Who decides this?

 

Christians believe that when we become believers, God in his mercy forgive us through his grace. Do Christians also need to extend this forgiveness to those who have executed crimes?

 

What is the difference between understanding why a crime was committed and excusing the crime? How does understanding the why both make justice easier and more complicated?

 

Stevenson lays out what is important to him:

• There are thousands of people on death row.
• Executions have been performed in a variety of ways of which none are humane.
• There are kids on death row
• There are kids who are serving life in imprison.

Explain why he thinks these are important points for him. How how does he work towards bringing justice in each situation?

 

Stevenson says that Each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve ever done. Is this true? Explain.

 

Can there either be justice for the falsely accused after being improperly convicted of a crime?

 

After reading this book, when do you think the death penalty should be administered? What means would you favor in executing a person? Does being humanae fit into an execution? (What is being humanae in this context?)

 

How can we insure those who are being executed recieved a trial which clearly showed guilt? A 2014 study estimated about 4% of those on death row are innocent; in Anthony Ray Hinton’s book, The Sun Does Shine, he thought it was around 10%. Does this make a difference on how you view the process and administering the death penalty?

 

In what areas of the justice system has your opinion changed after reading this book? In what ways?

 

When asked what effect he hoped Just Mercy would have on readers, Stevenson replied

I hope it makes people more thoughtful about our criminal justice system and the need to prioritize fairness over finality, justice over fear and anger. Many of the problems I describe exist because too many of us have been indifferent or disinterested in the poor and most vulnerable among us who are victimized by our system…

Looking at your own response, did Stevenson achieve his goal? What do we do with ourselves after reading a work such as this? (MPL)

 

Towards the end of the book, Stevenson realizes that his organization no longer needs him to accomplish its mission, but that he needed the work to fulfill his calling to bring justice. When do you know it is time to go and leave what you are doing? How do you find purpose after you leave?

 

A person on death row knows when there last day is. What would be feeling, thinking knowing during the weeks and days before your death if you knew when you were to die?

 

 

Many of these questions are either from or adapted from LitLovers.

• Why the title of Just Mercy?
• Does this story work as an autobiography? As a book espousing a position?
• Did the ending seem fitting? Satisfying? Predictable?
• Which person was the most convincing? Least?
  • Which person did you identify with?
  • Which one did you dislike?
• Every story has a world view. Were you able to identify this story’s world view? What was it? How did it affect the story?
• In what context was religion talked about in this book?
• Was there anybody you would consider religious?
  • How did they show it?
  • Was the book overtly religious?
  • How did it affect the books story?
• Why do you think the author wrote this book?
• What would you ask the author if you had a chance?
• What “take aways” did you have from this book?
• What central ideas does the author present?
  • Are they personal, sociological, global, political, economic, spiritual, medical, or scientific
  • What evidence does the author use to support the book's ideas?
    • Is the evidence convincing...definitive or...speculative?
    • Does the author depends on personal opinion, observation, and assessment? Or is the evidence factual—based on science, statistics, historical documents, or quotations from (credible) experts?
  • What implications for you, our nation or the world do these ideas have?
  • Are these ideas's controversial?
    • To whom and why?
• Are there solutions which the author presents?
  • Do they seem workable? Practicable?
  • How would you implement them?
• Describe the culture talked about in the book.
  • How is the culture described in this book different than where we live?
  • What economic or political situations are described?
  • Does the author examine economics and politics, family traditions, the arts, religious beliefs, language or food?
• How did this book affect your view of the world?
  • Of how God is viewed?
  • What questions did you ask yourself after reading this book?
• Talk about specific passages that struck you as significant—or interesting, profound, amusing, illuminating, disturbing, sad...?
  • What was memorable?
    

From the 2016 Mount Prospect Public Library. All rights reserved. Used with Permission. (MPL)

1. Is there anything about which you think or feel differently as a result of reading Just Mercy?

2. Who would you say is the center of this book: Bryan Stevenson or Walter McMillian?

3. Which details of Walter’s case were most difficult for you to accept? Was it difficult to believe that this could really happen?

4. What was your reaction to the fact that Walter’s case took place in Monroeville? How could the very residents who romanticized Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird stand for (or, worse, contribute to) Walter’s trials?

5. In which aspects was Walter’s case the ideal choice to use as the focus of the book? Would a case with a less flagrant miscarriage of justice have been a better way to test the author’s convictions?

6. Are the cases used as examples more about race or about poverty? In your opinion, is that a worthwhile question to ask?

7. Stevenson laments that “the opposite of poverty is not wealth; the opposite of poverty, in too many places, is justice.” How do you feel when you read those words?

8. Do you agree that “wealth, not culpability, shapes outcomes” in our justice system?

9. Critics of social justice initiatives complain that too many excuses are being made for those who have done wrong. What relevance might this opening line from The Great Gatsby have in the debate over this issue: “whenever you feel like criticizing anyone… just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had”?

10. How do cases such as Herbert Richardson’s, the man who set a bomb that killed a young girl, test these convictions?

11. Do you believe as Stevenson does, that we are more than the worst thing we have ever done? What effect, if any, should that belief have on the justice system?

12. One of Stevenson’s persistent talking points is that the question is not whether the condemned deserves to die but whether we deserve to kill. How does he explain this? Do you find this compelling?

13. Do you agree that the character of a nation is determined by how it treats the broken, the poor, the oppressed? Is this realistic?

14. In your opinion, is Stevenson against individuals accepting responsibility and/or consequences for their actions? Is there a middle ground?

15. Which other cases were memorable for you? Were you angry? Saddened? Did any moments bring satisfaction?

16. This book is often characterized as a memoir. Does that surprise you? In what ways does it fit that category?

17. What is your opinion of Stevenson as a “character”? Do you feel you know him? Do you understand him?

18. Did you notice the alternating structure of the book in which chapters about Walter’s case were followed by chapters on cases which illustrated different issues? What might the thinking behind that have been? Was it effective?

19. What does it mean to be a “stonecatcher”? What are the implications, both positive and negative?

20. Were you satisfied with the amount of time devoted to how the court system deals with mental illness, women, and children? Are you inspired to learn more?

21. Consider the title. What did you take it to mean before you read and/or what does it mean to you now?

22. The title appears specifically in two passages (p. 294 and p. 314). What is the context? Why “just” mercy in each instance?

23. When asked what effect he hoped Just Mercy would have on readers, Stevenson replied

I hope it makes people more thoughtful about our criminal justice system and the need to prioritize fairness over finality, justice over fear and anger. Many of the problems I describe exist because too many of us have been indifferent or disinterested in the poor and most vulnerable among us who are victimized by our system…

Looking at your own response, did Stevenson achieve his goal? What do we do with ourselves after reading a work such as this?

From Beaverton Library, OR (BLO)

a diagnosed mental illness, a rate of nearly five times greater than that of the general adult population.” Why do courts often ignore severe mental and intellectual disabilities at trial? Outside of the criminal justice system, do we as a society do any better? How can we combat this issue so that those that most need our help are not dismissed and buried in the prison system?

7. At one point in the story, the aunt of murder victim Rena Mae Collins approaches Stevenson after Herbert Richardson’s hearing and says, “[a]ll this grievin’ is hard. We can’t cheer for that man you trying to help but don’t want to have to grieve for him, too. There shouldn’t be no more killing behind this.” What do you believe the role of the victim’s family should be in the legal system? Should their wishes be taken into account at any point? Why or why not?

8. Monroeville is extremely proud of its hometown hero Harper Lee and her book To Kill a Mockingbird, a Pulitzer Prize winning piece that sees white lawyer Atticus Finch defending African American man Tom Robinson against fabricated rape charges of a white girl in racially divided Maycomb, Alabama. To Kill a Mockingbird is likely the most famous 20th century novel dealing with racial injustice, a distrustful legal system, and the evils of stereotyping. What would you say to a community that simultaneously wrongfully convicts a man due in large part to their own prejudice, all the while celebrating Harper Lee’s work? Is it ignorance? Naiveté? Indifference?

9. Stevenson writes, “[i]n debates about the death penalty, I had started arguing that we would never think it was humane to pay someone to rape people convicted of rape or assault and abuse someone guilty of assault or abuse. Yet we were comfortable killing people who kill, in part because we think we can do it in a manner that doesn’t implicate our humanity, the way that raping or abusing someone would. I couldn’t stop thinking that we don’t spend much time contemplating the details of what killing someone actually involves.” At another point in the book, Stevenson also states, “the real question of capital punishment in this country is ‘do we deserve to kill’?” Regardless of your thoughts on the death penalty, do these quotes challenge your opinion? What are your thoughts regarding these two statements?

10. Based on Stevenson’s work, your interpretation and understanding of it, combined with your past experiences before reading this piece, what is your definition of “just mercy?”

A discussion guide can also be downloaded from the Equal Justice Initiative

 

 

New Words:

• Miscegenation (1): the interbreeding of people considered to be of different racial types.

Book References:

• To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
• The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B. Du Bois
• The Origin of the Species by Charles Darwin
• Circumstantial Evidence byPete Earley
• Slavery by Another Name by Douglas Blackmon

Good Quotes:

• First Line: I wasn’t prepared to meet a condemned man.
• Last Line: It wasn’t likely that we could do much for many people who needed help, but it made the journey home less sad to hope that maybe we could.
• You can’t understand most of the important things from a distance… You have to get close. Stevenson grandmother, Chp: Introduction
• Love is the motive, but justice is the instrument. Reinhold Niebuhr
• You can’t understand most of the important things from a distance… You have to get close. Bryan Stevenson’s grandmother, Introduction
• if we don’t expect more from each other, hope better for one another, and recover from the hurt we experience, we are surely doomed. Chapter 6 Surely Doomed
• No lie can live forever. Chapter 11 I'll Fly Away
• As long as we are on earth, the love that unites us will bring us suffering by our very contact with one another, because this love is the resetting of a body of broken bones. Even saints cannot live with saints on this earth without some anguish. There are two things which men can do about the pain of disunion with other men. They can love or they can hate. Thomas Merton. From New Seeds of Contemplation, pg 72
• Each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve ever done. Chapter 15 Broken
• When you experience mercy, you learn things that are hard to learn otherwise. Chapter 15 Broken
• The power of just mercy is that it belongs to the undeserving. It’s when mercy is least expected that its most potent--strong enough to break the cycle of victimization and victimhood, retribution and suffering. Chapter 15 Broken

Table of Contents:

• Introduction: Higher Ground p. 3
• Chapter 1 Mockingbird Players p. 19
• Chapter 2 Stand p. 35
• Chapter 3 Trials and Tribulation p. 47
• Chapter 4 The Old Rugged Cross p. 67
• Chapter 5 Of the Coming of John p. 92
• Chapter 6 Surely Doomed p. 115
• Chapter 7 Justice Denied p. 127
• Chapter 8 All God's Children p. 147
• Chapter 9 I'm Here p. 163
• Chapter 10 Mitigation p. 186
• Chapter 11 I'll Fly Away p. 203
• Chapter 12 Mother, Mother p. 227
• Chapter 13 Recovery p. 242
• Chapter 14 Cruel and Unusual p. 256
• Chapter 15 Broken p. 275
• Chapter 16 The Stone catchers' Song of Sorrow p. 295
• Epilogue p. 311

References:

• Publisher's Web Site for Book
  • Equal Justice Initiative
• Author's Web Site
• Wikipedia-Author
• Amazon-Book
• Amazon-Author
• Barnes and Noble
• GoodReads-Book
• GoodReads-Author
• New York Times Review
• NPR Review and Interview
• Lit Lovers
• Texas Law Review
• TED Talk
• Harvard Law Today article on Stevenson, particularly the beat the drum for justice.
• Social Justice Books

• AP article with the main actor in the Just Mercy movie
• PBS Had a tenth anniversary interview with Stevenson on Dec 11, 2024