The book Just Mercy, written by a lawyer named Bryan Stevenson, is a story about how Stevenson’s clients, who are on death row, are wrongly convicted of their crimes. Stevenson studied at Harvard and worked for a non-profit agency that provided lawyers to death row inmates for free. He then later developed his own non-profit agency called Equal Justice Initiative. In the book, Stevenson mostly talked about racial inequality cases he took but he also represented cases where the clients were just unfairly treated during their trials. Just Mercy is written as if it was a real-life similarity of To Kill A Mockingbird. To Kill A Mockingbird is a story where people were wrongly accused in court mostly because of race.
I believe Stevenson’s purpose to writing this book is to show the readers how unjust the justice system is. He talks about cases he worked on with death row inmates to exemplify how the justice system is so quick to judge someone and wrongfully sentence them to death. For example, Walter McMillian’s case was the main plot of the story because of the evident use of racial injustice by Judge Key and the sheriff department. Judge Key just assumed McMillian was a part of a gang named Dixie Mafia because he is black, and this was Key’s way of trying to convince Stevenson to drop the case. The sheriff department played a big part of illegally messing with McMillan’s case by constructing false evidence against him in court. They persuaded an inmate to serve as a fake witness in return of a shorter sentence. Law enforcement generally judges cases by their personal feelings rather than following the penned law.
In the “Introduction” of Just Mercy, we are introduced to Bryan Stevenson and develop an ethos appeal towards him. He goes on to explain that he is a Harvard law student and his qualifications that make us trust the knowledge he shares. Stevenson’s willingness to stop everything and help out his clients earned him a sense of respect from his readers. He grew up in a poor upbringing and succeeded in life with determination to fight what he believes is right. Stevenson’s audience, such as young adults and activists, admire Stevenson because he is willing to go the extra mile for the fight against unjust rulings in court.
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In chapter 2 of the story, Stevenson talks about a time of him being racially conjectured by SWAT. One day, Stevenson arrived home from a long day of dealing with death penalty cases and he was just sitting in his car till SWAT pulled up and made him get out of his car. He was confused because he was doing nothing wrong and was parked out in front of his apartment. They had several complaints in Stevenson’s neighborhood of robbery. Stevenson lived in a nice neighborhood that was mostly occupied with white residents. Being the black citizen Stevenson was and sitting outside of this neighborhood in his car caused SWAT to instantly target him as a suspect. They were not following the rules of law and mistreated Stevenson. This experience creates a sense of comfort for the readers because Stevenson knows how it feels to be racially profiled too.
The main rhetorical appeal Stevenson uses throughout Just Mercy is pathos. He wants his audience to show mercy towards his clients to encourage them to spread the awareness of unjust case rulings for death row inmates. In a book review made by William W. Berry III, he says that “Stevenson’s theoretical frame advocates using mercy as a means by which to achieve justice rather than a means to avoid it” (Berry III 332). Stevenson creates an emotional appeal by sharing the background of his clients. For example, Walter McMillian, one of Stevenson’s biggest cases, was accused of murdering Rhonda Morris but was evidently innocent. McMillian grew up in a poor black settlement working in the fields with his family before he attended school. He was very skilled in the plowing business and eventually started up his own pulpwood business in the 1970s.
McMillian was a very successful African American businessman that won him a “measure of respect and admiration” (Stevenson 25). Later on, McMillian was having an affair with a white woman named Karen Kelly. This caused a lot of controversy among Monroeville. During this controversy, two murders happened, and the most possible suspect was Karen Kelly’s husband Ralph Myers. Out of anger, Myers points fingers at Walter McMillian for the murder of Rhonda Morris. The sheriff supported this false accusation and developed false evidence to prosecute McMillian. Overall, Walter McMillian was charged with murder just because he loved a white woman.
In Just Mercy’s “Introduction,” Bryan Stevenson issues readers a lesson that gets the reader to go further in thought. Stevenson explains that “each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve ever done” (Stevenson 17). This quote tells us that the criminals are more than just the crime they committed. Everyone in this world is somewhat vital to it. Everyone should look forward and not backwards on past acts. This teaches us worthiness of human beings in this world.
Bryan Stevenson uses logos throughout the book to show his professionalism in his law career. When he says, “one in every fifteen people born in the United States in 2001 is expected to go to jail or prison” he makes sure to prove this statement (Stevenson 15). He cited his evidence of the statement in the notes section in the back of the book along with other cited sources for the statements and statistics he declared. I trust the sources he cited because the they provide accurate information. With the statements and statistics mentioned by Stevenson it provides insight to factual information of mistreatment by the law enforcement.
The overall idea of the story line is that “Stevenson follows a few specific cases while providing an overview of the big picture of how the judicial system has ignored basic civil rights when the accused are people of color and/or poor” (Hand 90). He uses ethos, pathos, and logos to help create a deeper understanding about how corrupt the U.S. Justice System is. With the claims Bryan Stevenson made, I believe it left readers with an eye-opening experience of what is behind the scenes during court cases.
