Just Mercy, First Step towards Healing America

Keong Mu Jason Lim

Dr. Clarence Spigner

Honors 391

March 13, 2021

 Lim 1

The death of George Floyd. The shooting of Breonna Taylor. Months of protest and

unrestful cities. ACAB and BLM written everywhere. 2020 has been laced with racial injustice

issues.

Anyone who’s shaken by these events. Anyone who’s finally opened their eyes to the

harsh reality. Anyone who’s willing to take a step further and look deeper into police brutality,

racial inequity, and systematic racism in our justice system should start by reading Bryan

Stevenson’s Just Mercy. Through his anecdotes, Stevenson shares an honest reflection back into

his career in defending the most vulnerable populations and exposes the structural inequality that

underlies the U.S. justice system.

At the most basic level, Stevenson shares the stories of his defendants, ranging from

those who are falsely accused to low-income mothers on death row, inviting the readers not only

into his shoes defending them, but also to the places in which these individuals are situated. The

trust Stevenson formed with his clients allows him to contextualize their narratives, looking into

the bigger picture—often harsh upbringings, the neglected communities that these individuals

lived in, and the discrimination that they had to face throughout their lives. And by doing so,

Stevenson elevates his story to a higher level, hitting the readers with the true, ugly side of

America. However, what is perhaps most impressive about Stevenson’s narratives is that he

shares these incredible stories with a tender and warm outlook but also with a strong and

poignant passion to instill a sense of mercy and empathy in our system: he ultimately argues that

our justice system should move away from the condemnation and punishment to showing

empathy and mercy.

Stevenson starts the book with his personal background. Born into a poor black family,

Stevenson questions the racial and economic disparity that surrounds him growing up. His career
 Lim 2

first began when he interned for the Southern Prisoners Defense Committee while he was in

Harvard Law School. He develops a passion for prison justice and fighting against the death

penalty. He eventually moved to Alabama and founded the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI).

The story really takes off when Stevenson takes the case of Walter McMillian. McMillian

was a successful black businessman who was on death row after being falsely accused of killing

a white woman. The case unfolds in a small town called Monroeville, where McMillian’s good

reputation gets tarnished when his affair with a white woman, Karen Kelly, gets exposed. During

the same time, the murder of Ronda Morrison, a local white woman, shakes the town. Ralph

Myers, a mentally unstable white man who conspired with Karen Kelly, falsely accuses Walter

after being bribed and coerced by the local racist law officers.

Later in the story Myers recants his testimony, which triggers national media coverage of

the case. After the case garnered national attention, the District Attorney Tom Chapman also sets

up a new investigation delving into the case. When Chapman finds the truth—McMillian’s

innocence—his sentence gets overturned, which allows him to become a free man after six years

on death row. Eventually Stevenson and McMillian form an amazing friendship and travel

around the U.S. and world to highlight the reality of the American justice system while

also teaching people about the power of love and forgiveness.

Throughout the book, Stevenson also shares the stories of other individuals and his

philosophical reflection on the cruelty of the justice system. Stevenson and EJI take on multiple

cases defending juveniles who are sentenced to life in prison for various crimes. With the

relationship and trust built with his defendants, he is able to share the most powerful details of

their childhood, trauma, and cruel experiences they have in prison. Stevenson eventually argues

that when sentencing juvenile offenders, their background, immature development of the brain,
 Lim 3

and potential to change and grow should be taken into account. He claims that they deserve

mercy and second chances, not excessively harsh punishment. With these ideas in mind, EJI

actually wins two landmark Supreme Court Cases that ban juvenile offenders from being

sentenced to life in prison.

Stevenson also shares his stories of defending the marginalized mothers who have been

accused of killing their children. However, the law officials often oversimplify and misconstrue

their circumstances, often resulting in harsh and unjust sentences. By sharing their side of the

story, Stevenson counters the often-one-dimensional depictions of these poor mothers and raises

awareness about the neglected, poor populations.

Reading this book shed a new light on 2020 for me. I believe that the civil rights

movements that encompassed 2020 is not just a symptom of modern problems. It was more than

just fighting against police brutality. It was more than abolishing or defunding the police: it was

about bringing an end to the unjust system that has existed since the birth of this nation, and this

book has exposed the ugly side of America for me. Stevenson points out how the system has

built upon lie after lie. I wonder how much longer we need to kill innocent people to maintain

these lies. It is about time that we put a stop to this.

However, reading this book and processing the events that occurred in 2020 is truly more

than just recognizing the reality and getting onboard with these movements without question. I

had a lot of cognitive dissonance that was quite challenging to resolve. Although I am from

Korea and am an immigrant, I spent my junior and high school years in a white environment

with a deeply conservative, Christian, Caucasian family. I was surrounded by amazing people,

who are my best friends, mentors, and like a second family. I also met a lot of kind-hearted

police officers who were far from how the entire police force has been framed by the ACAB
 Lim 4

movement. This includes a police officer who gave me a baseball card when I was younger for

being a virtuous kid; my buddy’s friend’s dad who often drove us around in his patrol car; and

another officer who, last summer, after witnessing my first car accident, kindly walked me

through all the steps I needed to take, and assured me that none of it was my fault and that he’d

file a report clearly laying out the other party’s responsibility.

My positive memories with these law enforcement personnel overlaid with McMillian,

the neglected kids, and low-income mothers’ experiences drew a sharp contrast between my

experience and that of others. I thought about how for the underprivileged minorities in this

nation, it’s incredibly difficult to have a good impression of these people. They may be pointed

at with pistols instead of receiving a baseball card. They may be in the backseat of a police car

for reasons other than a free ride. They may have officers choke them to death instead of helping

them write an accident report. To me, these thoughts were uncomfortable and agonizing.

But towards the end of our course, I realized that I was mistaken. I was equating

blackness with racism. As my group presented in our “Internalized Racism: They are coming for

you girl!” presentation, we must separate blackness and racism. Indeed, some of the stories and

circumstances that Stevenson shares about his defendants are tragic. However, those

circumstances merely reflect racism and certainly do not define these individuals. The perfect

example that separates these two antagonizing concepts is Walter McMillian. He was falsely

accused and put on death row because of racism. Racism is hateful, oppressive, discriminatory,

and ruthless. But at the end of the day, blackness prevailed—McMillian and his community

persevered and showed incredible mercy and love for the world. And I believe this is what

exactly defines blackness. It is resilient, forgiving, warm, and most importantly, strong.
 Lim 5

So how did I come to terms with my past experiences? I decided to separate between the

individual experiences and system just as I had separated blackness from racism. These

individuals have been and will always be part of my life, and I cannot change how their kind

deeds have impacted me. However, what I can do is work towards fixing the unjust system at

large. Like Stevenson urged, I want to make an impact through compassion and love. For me, the

tool of choice is medicine and science. In Just Mercy, Stevenson showed how inequality and

discrimination affects the poor and minorities in the legal realm. In reality, racism extends well

beyond just the legal realm and affects all aspects of life, and one of the most deeply affected

areas is medicine. Biased and racist medical education and doctors dismiss and invalidate

minority patients’ feelings and experiences or, even worse, important medical signs. The

unaffordable medical bills keep the poor away from preventable treatment and thereby create

bigger and more expensive medical problems. And in the worst cases, this price will push people

to forego medical care, practically acting as a death sentence.

I want to change this. Like how Stevenson was more than a lawyer to his clients, I want

to be more than a doctor to my patients. I want to provide holistic care to people from all walks

of life. I want to be a friend and guide for people during their most difficult times. Like how EJI

made legal services accessible for everyone, I also want to make our treatment more affordable

and accessible by developing new techniques. Ultimately, I want to push for progressive policies

that encourage innovation for both profit and the people they impact.

What I appreciated about this book was the passion that practically oozed out from every

sentence. Stevenson’s commitment to make a bigger change can be sensed throughout the book

and is certainly contagious. Anyone who’s looking for the next spark for passion should read this
 Lim 6

book. It will ignite a feeling of warmth, positivity, and the courage to take the next step. So, I

want to conclude my review with what is ultimately my favorite quote from the book:

Each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve ever done… [the] opposite of poverty is

not wealth; the opposite of poverty is justice … the true measure of our commitment to

justice, the character of our society, our commitment to the rule of law, fairness, and

equality cannot be measured by how we treat the rich, the powerful, the privileged, and

the respected among us. The true measure of our character is how we treat the poor, the

disfavored, the accused, the incarcerated, and the condemned.