Just Mercy

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

Stevenson’s experiences bear this statement out. Each person contains multitudes. One act, perhaps committed due to poverty, mental illness, or bad decision-making, does not wholly define a person. As the book progresses, the reader can see how this statement refers not just to prisoners, but to all involved in the criminal justice system. Many people make mistakes—not just convicted criminals, but sheriffs and judges, as well. And all people, Stevenson argues, deserve mercy. 

“…the opposite of poverty is not wealth; the opposite of poverty is justice.”

Here again, Stevenson draws a connection between class and justice. Wealth itself, he is arguing, is not the opposite of poverty. It is the access to real justice that poverty precludes that is key. Giving people fair trials and equal representation and treatment under the law will combat poverty far more than any monetary donation. 

“But there was no evidence against McMillian—no evidence except that he was an African American man involved in an adulterous interracial affair, which meant he was reckless and possibly dangerous, even if he had no prior criminal history and a good reputation”

Here, Stevenson suggests that far more than physical evidence, it was Walter’s actions in the year leading up to the trial that made him a target. As he notes, interracial relationships were historically and continue to be sources of great scandal in the South. Walter chose to defy unspoken societal rules, and his defiance of these rules suggested that he could break others—even murder. 

“‘Beat the drum for justice’”

This is the command Stevenson receives from an old man who has heard him speak. The man is a former Civil Rights marcher who received scars from the police but calls them medals of honor. His words connect the historical Civil Rights Movement to Stevenson’s continued campaign for the justice. It is new movement, but one that could not have existed without people like the scarred old man.

“Walter thought the testimony was so nonsensical he couldn’t believe people were taking it seriously. Why wasn’t everyone laughing?”

This is a horrifying moment for Walter during his trial. He sees, during Ralph Myers testimony, that his experience of the trial is not matching up with those of the white community. The white community is willfully choosing to ignore the obvious holes in Ralph’s testimony. They have already convicted Walter in their minds, as he begins to see in this moment.

“‘All this grievin’ is hard. We can’t cheer for the 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.’”

The family of a victim says this to Stevenson. They cannot be happy for the man Stevenson represents, but they do not want him to be executed, either. This statement bolsters Stevenson’s central thesis that killing is a traumatizing, immoral act, whether it is a single person or the state doing the killing. 

“I couldn’t stop thinking that we don’t spend much time contemplating the details of what killing someone actually involves.”

Stevenson, who has witnessed executions, has a perspective on capital punishment that few Americans have. Proponents of the death penalty rarely have the opportunity to witness an execution. They do not witness the pain of the condemned person’s family. They do not watch the prisoner die—perhaps slowly and agonizingly. As such, they flippantly defend an institution they know nothing about. 

“Walter’s family and most poor black people in his community were similarly burdened by Walter’s conviction…The pain in that trailer was tangible—I could feel it. The community seemed desperate for some hope of justice.”

Throughout the book, Stevenson attempts to show how Walter’s imprisonment was not only traumatizing the Walter, but to his entire black community. If Walter was taken from his home and his people, wrongfully convicted of a crime, and then might even be executed for it, the black community knows it could happen to them, too. If justice could be so denied to Walter, it could be denied to any of them simply because they are poor and black.

“The expansion of victims’ rights ultimately made formal what had always been true: Some victims are more protected and valued than others.”

Stevenson acknowledges that it is not just defendants who are prejudged based on race or class. Victims, too, are ranked according to their place in society. He shows this through the community’s differing responses to the murder of a prominent man’s daughter as opposed to the murder of a rural, poor white woman. While the two share race, they do not share class, and the wealthier woman’s case is given far more weight than the poor woman’s.

“‘I ain’t scared of no dog.’”

Mrs. Williams faces her fear of police dogs. She walks past what is essentially a symbol of institutionalized racism. She is no longer afraid of the systems that have oppressed her and the larger black community for hundreds of years.

“‘I’m here.’”

Mrs. Williams declares this to Stevenson. It is not simply a roll call. She is letting him know that she is present in the courtroom, but she is also declaring this to the judge, sheriff, and other white bystanders. Despite her fear of the police dog and the machinations designed to keep her out, she is in this courtroom to stay. 

“America’s prisons have become warehouses for the mentally ill.”

Many of Stevenson’s clients are mentally ill, and this mental illness often contributes to the crimes they committed. Stevenson details how the move out of institutionalizing the mentally ill gave individuals greater freedom, but ultimately, simply led to prisons becoming the new institutions. 

“‘When is someone going to come into my courtroom and protect the rights of Confederate Americans?’” 

Stevenson hears the above quote from a Southern judge. This comment proves just how differently white Southerners and black Southerners can view the justice system. Despite having absolutely every systemic advantage, the white judge still sees himself as an oppressed class. 

“His freedom wouldn’t be based on some tricky legal loophole or the exploitation of a technicality. It would be based on simple justice—he was an innocent man”

Though Stevenson is an accomplished lawyer, he makes clear that this case is pure and simple—Walter did not commit the crime. No loopholes or complex arguments are even necessary. This is justice at its most basic. 

“But the laughter today felt very different. It was the laughter of liberation.”

Stevenson visits Walter in prison as he is about to be released. Though they have spent many hours together in this prison, the mood is noticeably different. After all their hard work, Walter is going home.

“In the last twenty years, we’re created a new class of ‘untouchables’ in American society, made up of our most vulnerable mothers and their children.”

Here, Stevenson alludes to the Hindu caste system’s class of “untouchables”—people relegated by their birth to dangerous, unpleasant jobs and generally cast out of society, too lowly even to be touched by higher caste people. He argues that poor women—particularly minority or mentally ill women—and their children occupy that same place in American society. They are ignored and looked down upon, and when terrible accidents occur because of this societal abandonment, the mothers are viewed as villains and monsters.

“Adding insult to injury, Tate went on to be re-elected sheriff, and he remains in office today; he has been sheriff continuously for more than twenty-five years.” 

This is one of the book’s most depressing realities. Despite Tate’s many crimes, his overt racism, and his dogged determination to see an innocent man executed, he suffers no consequences for his actions. The white community of Monroeville continues to elect him year after year, placing him in a position of power which he could use to harm more people.

“Almost all the cases involved condemned people marked by the tragic irony that they were now nothing like the confused children who had committed a violent crime; they had all changed in some significant way.”

Here, Stevenson is speaking of his clients who committed crimes as children. Unlike his adult offenders, these former child offenders have changed drastically since committing their crimes. And how could they not? Adolescence and young adulthood is a time of huge biological change. It seems horribly unfair to Stevenson that these clients’ growth and maturity is not enough to grant them a second chance. 

“We’re supposed to sentence people fairly after fully considering their life circumstances, but instead we exploit the inability of the poor to get the legal assistance they need—all so we can kill them with less resistance.” 

All of Stevenson’s clients are poor. Most have been badly disadvantaged by inadequate legal help, purely because they cannot pay for a lawyer’s fees. Stevenson is appalled that the justice system is designed in a way to disadvantage the poor, even wrongfully convict them, purely so that they can be killed more easily. 

“Why do we want to kill all the broken people? What is wrong with us, that we think a thing like that can be right?” 

On the eve of an execution, Stevenson experiences anguish as well as this moment of clarity. His clients—the ones who are guilty—are all broken people. They have been neglected and damaged by their parents, or foster care, or American society at large. Why, Stevenson wonders, is our response to this deep brokenness to kill them?

“But simply punishing the broken—walking away from them or hiding them from sight—only ensures that they remain broken and we do, too. There is no wholeness outside of our reciprocal humanity.”

Here, Stevenson argues that violence only begets more violence. By killing or marginalizing people who are “broken,” society only further breaks itself down. Justice and mercy are the only things that can bring a sense of wholeness as opposed to division.

“But today, our self-righteousness, our fear, and our anger have caused even Christians to hurl stones at the people who fall down, even when we know we should forgive or show compassion.”

Stevenson alludes to the Biblical story of Jesus Christ preventing the community-led stoning of a woman caught in adultery—arguably, the 1st century equivalent of a lynching. Jesus himself was a victim of capital punishment orchestrated by the state. Christians, Stevenson argues, have been complicit in throwing stones despite their Savior making perfectly clear that compassion and mercy must win out. 

“The real question of capital punishment in this country is, Do we deserve to kill?”

This question is the core of Just Mercy. Through numerous case studies and examples, Stevenson argues that not only is the justice system ill-equipped to accurately determine guilt and assess mitigating circumstances, but that it is morally wrong to kill a human being—no matter who does it.