Book SummaryJust Mercy, by Bryan Stevenson

1-Page Summary1-Page Book Summary of Just Mercy

Over a half-century after the civil rights movement sought justice for African Americans, prominent movements such as Black Lives Matter continue fighting to expose and resist injustice. In this social landscape, lawyer and social justice activist Bryan Stevenson’s message is timely: The US justice system, through mechanisms like mass incarceration and extreme punishment, denies justice to society’s most vulnerable members.

In his 2014 book Just Mercy, Stevenson examines the justice system’s pervasive failure toward marginalized populations—especially racial minorities, but also women, children, veterans, and the intellectually disabled and mentally ill. To illustrate this...

Just Mercy Summary Stevenson’s Legal Background

To begin, we’ll discuss how Stevenson’s legal background showed him the unfairness of the justice system and the need for merciful treatment of the accused. First, we’ll outline his work with the Southern Prisoners Defense Committee (SPDC), then we’ll proceed to Stevenson’s nonprofit, the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI).

Working With Death Row Inmates

As a student at Harvard Law School in 1983, Stevenson completed a one-month internship with the SPDC—an organization representing death row inmates in Georgia. Stevenson writes that while working with the SPDC, he realized that even death row prisoners have the potential for redemption.

(Shortform note: Even if Stevenson is correct that death row inmates have the potential for redemption, death row conditions aren’t conducive to that redemption. In many states where the death penalty is legal, death row inmates are placed in indefinite solitary confinement and allotted fewer than four hours of out-of-cell recreation daily. According to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), [these conditions harm inmates’...

Just Mercy Summary The Walter McMillian Case

Among Stevenson’s clients—first at the SPDC, then at the EJI—was Walter McMillian, a Black man from Monroeville, Alabama. In 1988, at age 46, McMillian was wrongly convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death. McMillian’s case illustrates several of Just Mercy’s underlying themes: the racial biases entrenched in the criminal justice system, the use of dubious evidence and tactics to win convictions, and the lasting harm suffered by those wrongfully imprisoned.

Background Information: The Crime, the Arrest, and the Trial

To begin, we’ll discuss the case itself, including the crime, McMillian’s arrest, and the trial. Because we’ll examine the case’s nuances in the following sections, we’ll start by introducing it in the broadest terms.

The crime that McMillian was convicted of occurred on November 1, 1986, when 18-year-old Ronda Morrison was shot and killed at the dry cleaning shop she worked at in Monroeville, Alabama. However, Stevenson relates that police exhausted their leads within weeks, and after seven months still hadn’t made any arrests. Consequently, the local public grew restless, publicly criticizing authorities for their failure to solve the...

Just Mercy Summary Mass Incarceration and Excessive Punishment

Stevenson discusses McMillian’s case throughout Just Mercy. However, he also examines other cases of unjust punishment, revealing a common theme: The US justice system consistently doles out extreme punishments to the most vulnerable Americans. In this section, we’ll discuss four demographics that Stevenson finds susceptible to unjust punishments: children, the intellectually disabled and mentally ill, veterans, and women.

Extreme Punishments of Children

To begin, Stevenson argues that unjust punishments of children became the norm in the ‘90s. According to Stevenson, faulty predictions by criminologists led to excessive punishments of children, especially children of color.

Stevenson notes that in the late ‘80s, criminologists predicted that “super predators”—violent children without remorse—would inundate the juvenile justice system. He argues that widespread panic consequently gripped the justice system, leading to increased prosecution of children as adults and harsh punishments.

The Origins and Consequences of the Super Predator Theory

In 1995, Princeton political scientist John Dilulio Jr. penned “[The Coming of the Super...

Just Mercy Summary Steps Toward Progress: Confronting Ignorance and Legal Hurdles

Despite the justice system’s failure toward society’s most vulnerable, Stevenson suggests that progress is possible, both in public understanding of justice and in the legal system’s conception of just punishment. In this section, we’ll first examine the four institutions that Stevenson argues have distorted our understanding of justice, then we’ll discuss more specific legal challenges that illustrate the possibility of progress.

Correcting our Understanding of Justice

According to Stevenson, four institutions have affected our view of justice, especially in relation to race: slavery, convict leasing, the Jim Crow era, and mass incarceration. He argues that these institutions have corrupted our understanding of justice, explaining society’s complacency with unjust punishments.

(Shortform note: It bears mentioning that, throughout Just Mercy, Stevenson implicitly likens the plight of enslaved Black people to that of imprisoned Black people today. Though he doesn’t go as far as other experts, who argue that mass incarceration amounts to modern-day slavery, he remains aware of the...

Shortform Exercise: Propose Improvements to the US Justice System

Stevenson argues that the US justice system suffers from various flaws, leading it to consistently deliver unjust punishments. In this exercise, analyze possible flaws and propose improvements to them that would better the justice system.

Of the issues discussed by Stevenson (racial biases in the justice system; flawed legal processes; extreme punishments of children, intellectually disabled and mentally ill people, veterans, and women), which do you think is the most pressing? Why?