Bryan Stevenson, a lawyer who has helped many people who were unfairly sentenced to lengthy prison sentences or even death row, to achieve freedom. Stevenson has written about his many experiences and interactions with the judicial system, specifically in Alabama, in his memoir ‘Just Mercy’. Throughout chapter 12, the true story of a woman named Marsha Colbey is presented, a woman who birthed a stillborn son would find herself on death row for the murder of a child she unintentionally killed. There is also the story of Victoria Banks, an intellectually disabled woman who was coerced into pleading guilty in the death of her nonexistent son. Along with these, Stevenson uses key descriptive words and phrases to give the reader a glimpse into what …show more content…
If Marsha did not live in poverty, she would likely have had proper prenatal care, and even if she gave birth to a stillborn child, the authorities would be more likely to let her go unscathed. The systemic injustices that plague our court system bring us nothing but farther from heaven on earth. Furthermore, a different anecdote is presented to us, in the case of Victoria Banks. Her story is truly one which proves the systemic injustices in our judicial system, an intellectually disabled woman is charged with capital punishment for the murder of a child that never existed “Ms. Banks was coerced into pleading guilty to killing a child who had never existed.”(234) Finally, Stevenson uses diction to fully communicate his feelings towards a need for reform in the justice system in our country. For example, he writes, “Debbie Cook noticed that Marsha Colbey was no longer pregnant. which stirred her interest.” (230). This choice of words shows how suspicious and intrusive the many are of people suffering from poverty. It highlights how often people make judgments that lead to unfair or incorrect accusations and convictions. Similarly, diction is further used to express Stevenson's theme. “Marsha Colbey eventually caught the
The purpose of this essay is to compare three very similar cases, the Scottsboro Trials, Brown v. Mississippi, and the fictional trial of Tom Robinson in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird; and to prove why the defendant of the third trial never had a chance. Each took place in the rural South in the 1920’s and 30’s and involved the unfair conviction of young black males by all-white juries pressured by the threat of mob violence. Each lacked the evidence sufficient for conviction, most especially for the death penalty. Last, heroes emerged from each trial and made small but solid steps towards equal justice for all.
The non-fiction text I decided to read that led me to my topic of Capital Punishment is titled, Just Mercy by attorney-at-law Bryan Stevenson, and it provides stories of a lawyer who wanted to bring justice to the court system by helping men, women and children, sentenced to death row by helping them obtain their freedom. The book first begins with a back story of the Mr. Stevenson. Bryan Stevenson is a graduate from the law soon of Harvard. His interest in Death Row cases grew when the law office he was interning for sent him to talk to a man, Walter McMillian, who was sentenced to death row after wrongfully being accused of a murder he did not commit and was framed for. Mr. Bryan helped him, and Walter was eventually released about six years in death row. In the book, Mr. Stevenson goes through many cases that he has taken upon, some failures and some great success. The people Bryan helped were mostly minorities who faced racial bias at the time of their trial. He represented not only men, but also children. There’s stories about how a woman whose baby was born dead was sentenced to prison
In the book Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson is a memoir where Bryan Stevenson guides us through his life as a lawyer for those who are death sentence. From 1983 when he was student at Harvard Law to 2013 where he lost a client he was defending for years , he takes us through several cases he has taken over the years and showed how they personally impacted him as not only as a lawyer , but a person as well.
The novel, Just Mercy, by Bryan Stevenson is an incredible read. In this book, Mr.
In Bryan Stevenson’s book Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption, he uses methods of gothic language, partial language, biased facts and repetition to portray prisons in a negative light, allowing him to subtly persuade the reader, he often times does this through the negativity of prisons focusing on: prison guards, the structures themselves and the mistreatment of the prisoners. This method is a vital form in storytelling, but often times detracts from the overall message of Just Mercy and the injustices of the prison system.
Capital punishment and bias in sentencing is among many issue minorities faced for many years in the better part of the nineteen hundreds. Now it continues to spill into the twenty first century due to the erroneous issues our criminal justice system has caused many people to suffer. In the book Just Mercy authored by Bryan Stevenson, Stevenson explains many cases of injustice. Stevenson goes into details of numerous cases of wrongfully accused people, thirteen and fourteen year olds being sentenced to death and sentences of life without parole for children. These issues Stevenson raises bring to question whether the death penalty is as viable as it should be. It brings to light the many issues our criminal justice system has today. There
Just Mercy touches on the idea of racial inequality and profiling the modern day american justice system by bringing us to a variety of cases that demonstrated this injustice. Bryan Stevenson also referenced an experience he personally had where he was being targeted by authorities for no good reason other than racial profiling. This theme of racial injustice and profiling connects Just Mercy to To Kill a Mockingbird. This idea is brought upon in To Kill a Mockingbird with Tom Robinson’s court case in which he is accused of committing rape. Many people judged Atticus Finch for defending Tom, not because of the allegations of committing rape, but rather the fact that he was defending a black man. Further proving the point that the contents in To Kill a Mockingbird can still be valuable today.
...hat he was completely undeserving of the inequitable allegations that the populace made toward his character. In the first sentence of the essay, Staples discusses his first “victim.” His use of this word at first provokes the reader to think that the author was a criminal, which illustrates the same mistake many other people had made in the real world. Staples realizes that, ultimately, there is nothing he can do about discrimination despite his innocence.
By coming into the country, other races are denied of superiority and are exposed to an already “racialized society”. (pp.78) Oppression also comes into place with hierarchy, such as the “Bonds of Sisterhood” by Romero that portrays a difference between African American servants and housewives. It sets up an inequality between both women, showing inferiority over African American woman. One last reading that has emerged and captivated attention is Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson. Stevenson expresses oppression in one of his own narratives when he was discriminated by two S.W.A.T officers. He describes his experience terrifying yet shocking since he had done nothing wrong. He was accused of a burglary based on the color of his skin because he lived in a white neighborhood. Not only that, but he was also investigated and searched which violated his rights. This unlawful act portrayed the ignorances for complex, multiple, and cross cutting relationships because Stevenson was an educated lawyer; yet, was seen different by the two officers in his own residence. Overall, Stevenson’s book has captured attention since it has given an experience of what he went
Bryan Stevenson is a defence attorney for a man named Herbert Richardson who 's on
In Bryan Stevenson book Just Mercy, Stevenson exposed many things about the justice system. He explain to his audience that the justice system are treated minorities wrong. Bryan Stevenson influences on the readers’ thoughts about the justice system. He makes the readers question if we are being treated right. Stevenson does this by using logos effectively by providing the readers with the cases he dealt with. There are four cases that stuck out to readers are the Walter, Charlie, Horace, and Joe.
Humanity instructs us that we must behave with tolerance and respect towards all. Just Mercy exemplifies how that is not the case for many Americans. Critical Race Theory is a theory which focuses on the experiences of people who are minorities. It argues that people who are minorities in the United States are oppressed and, because of the state of being oppressed, creates fundamental disadvantages (Lecture 4.7). A study conducted for the case McCleskey v. Kemp revealed that when a black defendant killed a white victim, it increased the likelihood the black defendant would receive the death penalty (Stevenson, 2014). Looking at this fact through the lens of a critical race theorist, it illustrates how unconscious racism is ignored by our legal system. The actuality that, statistically, people of color have a higher chance of getting sentenced to death than white people is a blatant example of inequality. In Chapter 8, Stevenson discusses the case of multiple juveniles who were incarcerated and sentenced to death in prison. These juveniles who were sent to adult prisons, where juveniles are five times more likely to be the victims of sexual assault, show an innate inequality towards minors (Stevenson, 2014). Ian Manuel, George Stinney, and Antonio Nunez were all only fourteen-years-old when they were condemned to die in prison. Although they did commit crimes, the purpose of the juvenile justice system is to rehabilitate young offenders. Trying juveniles in adult court represents a prejudice against age, which Stevenson sought to fight by working on appeals for Manuel and Nunez (Stevenson, 2014). His humanity shines through once again, as he combats the justice system to give the adolescents another chance at life, rather than having them die in prison. The way prisoners with mental and/or physical disabilities are treated while incarcerated is also extremely
In Harper Lee’s fictional novel To Kill A Mockingbird, an African American field hand is falsely accused of raping a white women. Set in the 1930’s in the small town of Monroeville Alabama, Addicus Finch an even handed white attorney tries to shed a light on the injustice of this innocent black man’s conviction. Atticus feels that the justice system should be color blind, and he defends Tom as an innocent man, not a man of color.
Throughout the book, the one argument she is constantly supporting is the idea that young black boys, in their early teens, are arrested and put through the criminal justice system in a new age version of lynch-mob justice. The alleged crimes of these young black boys receive much media fanfare, but when they are cleared of any wrong-doing nothing is said about it in the media. She makes her arguments by using the story of Little B as a frame for her thesis. By taking his story and stripping away the prosecution's rush to judgment in the investigation and trial, he used the words of drug dealers awaiting sentencing and addicts, such as Little B's mother, to ramrod through a conviction in which there was no physical evidence connecting the boy to the killing. To supplement the frame, she recaps high-profile cases of young black children being arrested and charged for crimes despite evidence to the contrary.
These injustices have begun long before Tom’s trial, but it is his trial which epitomizes the problems with our society. The first witness was simply just a misguided fellow named Heck Tate who it seems didn’t have much to offer to the case. Next, Atticus Finch called Bob Ewell to the stand. When I saw Ewell take the stand such a fierce hatred rose within me that I began to shake and tremble. Ewell wrongfully accused Tom of raping his daughter Mayella, however, with the grace of God, Atticus Finch had shown that it was very possible that it was Bob Ewell who because he was a lefty could have beat Mayella. If it were not for great men like Atticus Finch I would have lost all hope for this world. As I watched Mayella take the stand I wondered how such a kind looking person could be someone of such poor character. Her words seemed to paint a picture of a sad life; one where a father neglects her and she has fallen under hard times. Atticus, after pointing out it was probably Bob who beat her, asked Mayella who it really was that beat her. Mayella made it clear it was Tom Robinson, upon which Atticus asked Tom to stand. To the astonishment of the court Tom was handicapped! Tom was then called to the stand where he laid open for all to see the truth, explaining that it was Mayella who came on to him (that treacherous woman!). Soon enough the trial ended and every one awaited the verdict of the jury. The next few hours were the most nerve wracking of my life.