Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Brian Stevenson
Finished this yesterday. A timely book exposing unjust sentencing of the poor, children, mentally ill, and African Americans.The background story follows Bryan Stevenson as part of the Equal Justice Initiative as he uncovers and presents new evidence to free an innocent African American man on death row in Georgia, convicted in spite of multiple witnesses that he was at home during the time of the murder and evidence that the main witness for the prosecution lied in response to police intimidation. In the course of telling this story, Stevenson tells his own story and attempts to free or reduce sentences for those unjustly accused or sentenced: a 13-year-old boy convicted to life without parole in an adult prison who lived in uninterrupted solitary confinement for 18 years, and a woman living in a FEMA trailer as a result of Hurricane Katrina sentenced to life without parole for smothering her premature stillborn based on the allegation of a pathologist who had a history of declaring homicides without sufficient evidence. "By 2010, Florida has sentenced more than a hundred children to life imprisonment with parole for non-homicide offenses, several ...thirteen years old..All of the youngest condemned children--13 or 14 of age---were black or Latino." p. 153-4 "Most incarcerated women--nearly two-thirds--are in prison for non-violent, low-level drug crimes or property crimes...Approximately 75-80% of incarcerated women are mothers with minor children." p. 236 "In 1996, Congress passed welfare reform legislation that ...included a provision that authorized states to ban people with drug convictions from public benefits and welfare...formerly incarcerated women with children...can no longer live in public housing, receive food stamps, or access basic services. In the last twenty years, we've created a new class of 'untouchables' in American society, made up of our most vulnerable mothers and their children." p. 237 Along the way, Stevenson advocates for reform of the criminal justice system and pleads for mercy: "the many ways we've legalized vengeful and cruel punishments, how we've allowed our victimization to justify the victimization of others. We've submitted to the harsh instinct to crush those among us whose brokenness is most visible." "...each of us is more than the worst thing we've ever done."p. 290
"Older people of color in the South would occasionally come up to me after speeches to complain about how antagonized they feel when they hear news commentators talking about how we were dealing with domestic terrorism for the first time in the United States after the 9/11 attacks. An older African American man once said to me, 'You make them stop saying that! We grew up with terrorism all the time. The police, the Klan, anybody who was white could terrorize you. We had to worry about bombings and lynchings, racial violence of all kinds.' " p. 299
Upon closing the book, I thought of Micah 6:8:
"God has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God."
Thanks, Eleanor, for lending me this book.
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