Summary:

Lawyer Bryan Stevenson gives a first-person account of his decades helping marginalized
Americans who have been unfairly and harshly punished by the U.S. criminal justice system,
which disproportionately targets people of color and poor people. At the heart of Just Mercy is
the story of Walter McMillian, a Black man who was framed for the murder of a girl named
Ronda Morrison, convicted, and sent to death row.

Stevenson alternates chapters about Walter with his personal reflections on our country’s
history with racial disparity and issues around incarceration. Stevenson highlights other groups
of vulnerable people who have been victimized by the criminal justice system and shares the
stories of the prisoners he has helped over the years. The book also follows the growth of
Stevenson’s nonprofit law project, the Alabama-based Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), through its
expansion from focusing on death row prisoners to helping people sentenced to life without
parole. Stevenson chronicles how EJI becomes a significant force in criminal justice reform.

In 1983 as a law student, Mr. Stevenson discovered his life’s passion when he interned with the
Georgia-based Southern Prisoners Defense Committee and met his first death row prisoner.
After graduation Stevenson accepts a job with the organization to represent poor prisoners,
including those in Alabama who lack any public defender. He meets Walter McMillian on
Alabama’s death row. Walter owns a successful business but also transgresses racial
boundaries when he has an affair with a white woman. Soon after the affair becomes public, the
woman’s friend, Ralph Myers, accuses Walter of committing the unsolved murder of Ronda
Morrison, which has outraged the community. Law enforcement, including a racist sheriff and
the district attorney, eagerly pounces on this accusation, overlooking Walter’s alibi and a lack of
evidence. Instead, they actively force Ralph to stick with his story even when he tries to recant.
They coerce other false witness testimonies, and—as revealed years later—actively suppress
evidence.

After Stevenson and the team at EJI unsuccessfully appeal Walter’s conviction, they launch
their own investigation of the crime and uncover new evidence. They find witnesses who can
prove the witnesses against Walter lied as well as financial records that indicate that one of
these witnesses was paid to give false testimony. Stevenson and his team also petition for and
receive all records from Walter’s trial. However, their big break comes when they receive a
phone call from Ralph, who now wants to make amends. Ralph admits to lying about Walter and
says he was threatened by law enforcement. Stevenson wins a hearing for Walter where he can
present his new evidence: Ralph’s testimony, which is confirmed by health care workers and
other inmates, as well as recordings of the law enforcement team threatening Ralph if he
doesn’t frame Walter.

While the judge refuses to grant Walter relief, Stevenson continues the appeal process through
the Alabama courts. The district attorney asks outside agents to investigate the murder for
which Walter was convicted, and the investigators determine that Walter had nothing to do with
the crime. Six weeks later, the court invalidates Walter’s conviction. Stevenson and the State file
a joint motion to dismiss the charges, and Walter is set free.

Throughout the process, Stevenson and Walter become close friends, and Stevenson helps
Walter upon his release, including filing a civil suit on his behalf and offering him a place to stay.
Walter works with Stevenson to share his story, giving interviews and speaking at legal
conferences, and Walter is even featured in a documentary. Unfortunately, Walter is diagnosed
with advancing dementia and is forced to rely on family and eventually a nursing facility for his
care. He dies in 2013. Stevenson gives a eulogy at his funeral and shares all he learned from
Walter, particularly that we must extend mercy to everyone, even those who have not earned it.

Interspersed with chapters chronicling Walter’s narrative are stories of Stevenson’s other clients
and work. His closeness with these prisoners and their horrifying circumstances makes
Stevenson more determined to help and causes him to reflect on abstract issues that
nevertheless imbue the criminal justice system, like humanity and mercy. Stevenson focuses on
several categories of vulnerable people who become trapped in the system, including mentally
ill prisoners, disabled prisoners, and poor women who give birth to stillborn babies.

Stevenson and his team at EJI also become increasingly focused on juvenile offenders who are
sometimes tried as adults despite their young age. These offenders may be given de facto
death sentences by being sentenced to life without parole and face perilous circumstances
when they are housed in adult prisons. Stevenson illustrates how these prisoners retain their
own humanity while being forced to live under inhumane conditions. He also discusses some of
the qualities common among these types of prisoners: They are generally poor and
disproportionately people of color, and most of them lack adequate legal counsel. The juveniles
have horrific backgrounds of abuse and neglect.

Stevenson and his team at EJI also work to change the legal system to offer more protection to
marginalized people. Several of his cases end up before the U.S. Supreme Court, and he
succeeds in winning rulings that ban as unconstitutional the conviction of children to life without
parole and the execution of people deemed incompetent from dementia or neurological disease.
EJI works to raise public awareness of issues surrounding unfair incarceration, produces
groundbreaking reports on racial issues, and sets up programs to help formerly incarcerated
people adjust to life on the outside.

Stevenson also reflects on the issues that surround the criminal justice system. His time spent
with prisoners awaiting their execution makes him realize how inhumane it is to prepare another
human to die. After decades of work, when Stevenson fails to prevent the execution of a man
who suffers from an intellectual disability, he momentarily feels unable to continue his work.
However, he realizes that he cannot help but be broken by his experiences and comes to
understand that it is his own brokenness that allows him to more fully understand the need for
mercy and to bring compassion to others. The book ends with Stevenson’s renewed
commitment to helping others.
Review:

Yep. Reading Just Mercy made me sick to my stomach as it shed light on numerous, absolutely
abhorrent cases of injustice and the horrible treatment of people of color in our justice system. It
also hardened and strengthened my resolve to play a more active role in making changes I think
our country desperately needs. The first half of the book is… tough. I constantly found myself
putting the book down to digest what I’d learned, and, if I’m being completely honest, to give
myself a break from the harsh truths I was having to confront. Despite my struggle, this book
was well worth the discomfort it brought me because it also gave me hope. Just Mercy opened
my eyes to a subject I wasn’t wholly familiar with, and it changed me for the better.