Final Final Blog Post

It's really weird to be writing my last blog post. I'd really say this has become a habit for me that I hope I'll continue to follow in my own way once this unit is over.

Nevertheless, let's get on with it!

Just Mercy has been a really good book. It's given me a lot of insight into a lot of issues in our criminal justice system, our prisons, and our government.

It's also challenged my ideas about racism and education.

Ever since I finished Just Mercy, I've been thinking about a few things. First of all, why is it, even in our modern society today, do we still deal with so many problems concerning race and discrimination?

We have created a reality where cars can drive themselves, information is available freely over the internet, and where almost all countries have stable governments. But we still somehow can't get over the fact that although all of us are scientifically proven to be 99.99% alike (this is actually a real fact), just because one or two genes are changed in some of us, that's deserving of different treatment (Phillips)?

Note: we actually have six billion bases of human DNA in our genome, and only .001 out of 1 or .1% of those are different for random reasons (Phillips).


- Visualization of 1000 dots, each dot is .1% of the whole (Urban).

I don't really want to get into the human condition - but one thing is certain. No matter how much our society praises knowledge and education, at our root, we are not purely logical beings. What we may call logic is just a complex set of electrochemical circuits in our brain designed to connect sights, sounds, and smells for split-second processing.

However, I don't want to be too nihilistic. Ultimately I do believe that we can change our biases to see past races like we do with so many other things. We have to overcome our own wiring and control our biases and emotions. So although we still may be in some way neanderthals who still are afraid of anyone who looks different, in many more ways we can get rid of any biases, just like, while 10,000 years ago, it was normal to be scared of the dark, many people now in a modern world just aren't.

While I was reading Just Mercy, I noticed two big patterns that I thought might be the key to understanding how we can create a less biased and racist world.

In Just Mercy and a lot of other texts we've recently read, I noticed that fear, confusion, and ignorance were almost always behind what we called "racism."

I think maybe this is actually why Stevenson choose to write Just Mercy. By recalling all of his experiences with racism, he shows that racism is real and that we can do something about it. Through this, he helps to undo the reader's ignorance of racism (in the criminal justice system).

Ignorance of racism creates racism. This is a key idea in Just Mercy. Walter is put in jail for something he didn't do. I'd like to think many other townspeople would have liked to help Walter if they had really thought he was being put in prison for a discriminatory reason, but they simply didn't see anything, for them, which was out of the ordinary, so for them, they didn't really do anything about it.

Only later, when Walter's case airs on 60 Minutes, do a lot of local townspeople and media put pressure on the court to give Walter another chance at freedom.



- A real picture of Walter. That face is not of a guilty man (Walter).

Although Walter's town wasn't racist in the usual sense, their comfortability with their surroundings and lack of interest in helping Walter enabled real discrimination.

In the New York Times article we read earlier this year, one girl said how she felt her first contact with racism was when a friend came over and disregarded her traditions and didn't eat her family's food (Youth Radio Oakland).

Although maybe this friend shouldn't have felt compelled to take part in all of these traditions, not paying attention may cause racism just as much as being directly racist.

Being informed is something very easy to do today and it is probably the best way for us to stay updated about any recent issues and to form our own opinions. Participating in and acknowledging big events in your local community is a great way to prevent discrimination. If Walter's community had only followed his case from the beginning - stepping outside what the news articles were directly saying, his case wouldn't have been a problem.

Unfortunately, at the same time, being informed today is becoming harder and harder to do. We are living in a computer age where almost everything published is dumbed down or written to appeal to a specific audience. There is almost no such thing as bias-free writing today. Everything from an online newspaper article to a Wikipedia summary has pop-ups and ads all begging to be clicked on by a target audience. Unfortunately, that means discussion and critical analysis are our most important tools to reduce ignorance.

Ok, onward.

The idea of fear enabling racism I also noticed throughout this unit. Everything from Just Mercy to Whistling Vivaldi has this idea embedded somewhere.

In Whistling Vivaldi's fear is what causes a wary look at anyone at night who seems frightening (Steele).

Racism emerges on the streets late at night - when everything becomes biases and reaction time 

In Just Mercy, the plaintiff's horrifying images of Walter unlocks fear in the jury's minds.
Walter's initial ruling makes him feared, which only gives more reason to Sheriff Tate and the Judge to do whatever they can to make his sentence worse.  Fear and racism go hand and hand.

Racism creates fear, which sparks more racism.

I think education is a big part of reducing fear. We were afraid of water until we could swim. We were afraid of riding a bike until we rode a bike. We were afraid of math until we did algebra (maybe some of us still are :)

Fear is independent of logic and thought. Although we are emotional beings, specific education about different communities will go a long way to reducing irrational fears, and hopefully, improving the lives of many and reducing racism and discrimination.

Overall, without Just Mercy, I for sure wouldn't have touched on these ideas. Just Mercy has brought my understanding of racism in our court system a long way. In fact, when I first read the first chapter, I couldn't really tell if Stevenson was exaggerating a lot of details about Walter's case. It was so absurd, it was hard to believe! Only once I started learning more about how brutally racist our criminal justice system was, and to a much smaller extent, has been, I was able to understand Walter's story.

However, I think Just Mercy requires a specific type of reader. I do not believe that Just Mercy is a book intended to overload you with facts and shove an opinion about you. I think Stevenson hopes that through a reader's careful analysis of many unfortunate situations on death row, they will be able to develop their own strong and ethical ideas about race.

Hopefully, this opinion will lead a reader to pursue combatting inequality in their own community.

Sources

Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption. First edition.

     New York: Spiegel & Grau, 2014.

Phillips, Elizabeth M et al. “Mixed Race: Understanding Difference in the Genome Era.”

     Social forces; a scientific medium of social study and interpretation 

     vol. 86,2 (2007): 795-820. doi:10.1093/sf/86.2.795

Steele, Claude. Whistling Vivaldi: And Other Clues to How Stereotypes Affect Us.

     New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2010.

Urban, Tim. Visualization of 1000 dots. Wait But Why, 

     waitbutwhy.com/2014/11/from-1-to-1000000.html. Accessed 24 Apr. 2020. 

Walter Laughing. Equal Justice Initiative, Equal Justice Initiative 2020, 

     eji.org/cases/walter-mcmillian/. Accessed 24 Apr. 2020. 

Youth Radio Oakland. "First Encounters With Racism" ["First Encounters With Racism"]. 

     The New York Times, New York Times Company, 2 Aug. 2017, 

     www.nytimes.com/2017/08/02/us/first-encounters-with-racism.html. 

     Accessed 24 Apr. 2020. 

Just Mercy Reading #5: Wrap Up and My Own Argument About the Text

Just Mercy Reading #5: Question 3-Style Argument

This last reading, for the most part, shifts away from a courthouse perspective. I think if anything, these last few chapters summed up a lot of Just Mercy's main points: we have a judicial system, a flawed prison system, and race and poverty have everything to do with inequality.

But Stevenson for once does also show us the light. He talks about how his organization worked with the supreme court to make big changes to US law - giving hundreds of mistreated prisoners their freedom. Stevenson meets with Rosa Parks, makes peace with an angry church and gives his condolences to Walter's family at his funeral. I love the scene where Rosa Parks asks Stevenson about all the work he has been doing. Stevenson goes on an on. After a while, Ms. Parks responds,

"Ooooh, honey, all that's going to make you tired, tired" (293). 

But there still has been an overarching theme in Stevenson's last few chapters. If the first half of Stevenson's book was about the court system, then the second half was definitely about the US prison system. If you've been following the comment section of my blog posts, last reading there was one topic that I was really passionate about. I even wrote up a mini-blog post in the comment section of my last post - see here -> (https://theodoresjustmercyblog.blogspot.com/2020/03/just-mercy-reading-4-prison-20-years.html#comment-form)

Again and again, throughout Stevenson's book, he makes it seem like the US has one of the worst prison and court systems in the world. He describes in so much detail the injustices that happen to so many of his clients. This got some of my readers and me thinking - is this really true? Specifically, do we have the worst prison system in the world? Yes, I do think we do.

Adapting some of my ideas from my recent comment on my previous post and adding a lot of new ones: here is my argument.

First off, I simply can't say the US has the worst prison system in the world (worst meaning the most brutal, least forgiving). To a lot of different people, "worst" can have a lot of different meanings in the same way that a lot of words have a lot of different meanings. Let's look at the word "best," for example. If one person said Tom Brady is the "best" quarterback of all time, even though there is very substantial evidence to back up the claim, "best" is really hard to prove. Here's a classic example: it's really hard to tell whose pie was better in a family bakeoff, your grandma's or your mom's after you've eaten them both. "Good", "better", "bad", "worst" - these aren't really quantifiable things. Therefore, it's really hard to prove that something is the best or the worst.

To think about how to prove the US has the "worst" criminal justice system, we should think about what "worst" even means and create a suitable definition. To do this, we should take a look at other criminal justice systems and prison systems abroad.

It is easy to say that the US is one the better side of world poverty. There are many developing countries that simply do not have the resources to invest in better living conditions for prisoners versus what we have to offer. These prisoners may not be mistreated by intent so much as they are mistreated by an underfunded system and poorly supported government. Countries like Venezuela and Vietnam are struggling in ways we can not even understand in the US, and while it is no means right to say that it is okay what they are doing to their prisoners, I do think we have to find a specific definition of "worst" when it comes to talking about prisons in the US - because frankly, we cannot compare ourselves to many other countries abroad.

(US GDP rankings - screenshot from https://www.worldometers.info/gdp/gdp-per-capita/ - formal citation also below)


(GDP per capitalist. Personally, I found the GDP per capita to be a lot more relevant in this kind of argument, because it actually affects how much of an influence we could have with our money)

 The facts are plain and simple. The US has a GDP per capita (wealth/people) ranked 13th in the world, only trailing Luxembourg, San Mario, UAE, Kuwait, Norway, Switzerland, etc. Many of these other countries are artificially supported by (relatively unsustainable) oil wealth. Oil and gas make up 8% of the US GDP, as compared to 18% of Norway's GDP for instance. Even when we do account for the number of people in our country, the US still has an economy that tops the world charts. In fact, my choice in my blog post to say we can't compare the US prison system to Sweden may not be justified. According to what I just read, our GDP per capita is even higher than Sweden's (Obviously how we manage our wealth and what we consider to be pressing issues are certainly different).

Based on the fact that "worst" does have a variety of definitions, I think there is a viable argument to say the US does have one of the "worst" prison systems in the world - we just have to be careful how to define "worst." We are given two things: the US does have one of the world's leading economies and at the same time, of the most brutal prison systems, maybe not the most brutal, but clearly in the top 25%. There are the truths: we have privatized prisons, the death sentence, and juvenile sentencing. There are still a lot of remnants of civil rights issues in our court system. We admittedly and statistically do have the power to stop prisoner mistreatment, but we do not do so. In a lot of ways, this may be "worse" than what Venezuela is doing. If we are doing something and have the possibility to stop it and we make the choice not to stop doing it, is this worse than if the same thing is happening and we have no control over it? Maybe in this sense, we do have the "worst" prison systems in the world.

Our definition of "worst" is then simple. "Worst" means ethical. We do have the least ethical prison system in the world. Unlike a lot of other countries, we have time and resources to prevent thousands of prison deaths and hundreds of thousands of more traumas caused by prison. We can stop what happened to Walter but we do simply do not. This is extremely unethical and disappointing.

Works Cited

"GDP per Capita" ["GDP per Capita"]. WorldOMoter, 3 Apr. 2020, 

     www.worldometers.info/gdp/gdp-per-capita/. Accessed 3 Apr. 2020. 

Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption. First edition.

     New York: Spiegel & Grau, 2014.

"Norway Trade Picture" ["Norway Trade Picture"]. European Commision, 

     European Union, 13 Nov. 2019, 

     ec.europa.eu/trade/policy/countries-and-regions/countries/norway/. 

     Accessed 3 Apr. 2020. 

Again, thanks to readers for trudging through that with me. If you have any counterarguments or notice any logical flaws, feel free to comment down below and I will discuss them with you :)

Just Mercy Reading 4: Prison: 20 Years Ago vs. Today

Reading #4: Current Events Analysis

This last reading has been a wild ride. Despite death threats and bad press, and through a series of remarkable legal decisions, Stevenson is able to grant Walter his freedom.

Walter is given a second trial and literally walks the courthouse steps, leaving death row behind!

But Walter's story doesn't end up all that happily. Due to years of prison abuse and neglect, Walter struggles to find a job to stay afloat - going back to work as a woodsman and later trying his luck as a car repairman on his front lawn. The very last thing Walter does in this reading is cry in front of reporters who are interviewing him about coming off death row. Walter breaks down about how his life was ruined by prison and by his trial.

Stevenson's main point with including this part of Walter's story is that part of our criminal justice problem has to do with our prisons. More than ever, I thought this was a good time to connect Walter's story to some current events.

We still live in a time where our prisons are brutal and misgiving - in many ways worse than the last decade.

"In the United States, the number of women sent to prison increased 646 percent between 1980 and 2010, a rate of increase 1.5 times higher than the rate for men. With close to two hundred thousand women in jails and prisons in America and over a million women under the supervision or control of the criminal justice system, the incarceration of women has reached record levels" (235-236) 

Stevenson not only looks at the effects of prison on Walter in this chapter but also on another past client, Martha. Because of a legal complication, Martha is sent to a dangerous women's prison.
In the 90s, this statistic is at its peak - Martha's cell is overcrowded, especially with the mentally ill. She is mistreated for what should have been a mistrial.




(Big rise of incarceration of women from Prison Policy Initiative)

Even today, the United States' prison situation is not much better. Incarceration rates in women's prisons have continued to spike since the 90s (seen above in a cooly designed graphically by a public policy initiative), especially for state and local jails, both of which are notorious for housing violent offenders (not white-collar and wealthier prisoners, who typically go to federal prisons). The prison situation for women, today, has grown in magnitude but also in seriousness.

According to the American Physiological Association, "73 percent of women in state prisons and 75 percent in jails have mental health problems, compared with 55 percent and 63 percent of men, respectively" - just confirming that the situation has become even worse since Martha was locked up (Phelps). Women's prisons continue to house more and more offenders, a high percentage of which are violent and with mental illness.

Walter's problem of coming out of prison shocked and unprepared for society again is another key problem that existed in our prison system - and is one that still plagues our prison system. According to the University of Minnesota, still, only about 1/3 of prisoners that desire a degree or job certificate actually are able to work towards one. Out of 63% of prisoners that desire some kind of work certificate, only 21% are to even enroll in classes to make progress towards these kinds of goals.

This is really interesting. I think we really do consider ourselves a more progressive society than how we were back in the 90s. The thing is though, we really can't see on an everyday basis the injustice in our prisons. Prisons can be overcrowded and in poor condition - and without an advocator or an insider, the public would never know. Maybe this is why our prison system hasn't improved: because the general public and the people who are voting only see half of the issue.




(Interesting chart from the U of Minnesota showing education statistics for prisoners)

Our prison system is not designed to help inmates or to teach them, but to punish them. We have created a prison system that rewards brutality on inmates like Walter and Martha in the same ways that were going on twenty years ago. Not much has changed from Stevenson's allegory to today.

"Most people released from prison after being proved innocent receive no money, no assistance, no counseling - nothing from the state that wrongly imprisoned them" (244)

Stevenson's message reminds us that we had and still do have one of the most brutal prison systems on Earth. Stevenson's trip at the end of the reading to Sweden reveals a considerable difference in prison quality versus the US.

"Their punishments were humane, and their policymakers took rehabilitation of criminal offenders very seriously, which made me excited about the award and trip" (251)

But how can we fix our current prison problem? We are dealing with a whole different issue than Sweden. We have tens of millions of people being arrested for violent crimes, not tens of thousands.

Ultimately, fixing these problems will come down to conflict-prevention. We need to find ways to better educate more people, especially in poorer areas - and to reduce poverty and unemployment. We need to better fund schools and implement better prison rehabilitation programs to prevent more crimes before trying to stop them. So, maybe fixing prisons isn't that simple after all. But I think it can be done. 

Works Cited

Clark, Jared. "Inequality in Prison" ["Inequality in Prison"]. 

     Monitor on Psychology, vol. 40, no. No. 9, Sept.-Oct. 2009. American Psychological 

     Association, www.apa.org/monitor/2009/10/ recidivism. Accessed 30 Mar. 2020. 

Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption. First edition. New York: Spiegel & Grau, 2014. 

Phelps, Michelle. "Rehabilitation in Prison?" ["Rehabilitation in Prison?"]. 

     Gender Policy Report, U of Minnesota, 21 Mar. 2017, 

     genderpolicyreport.umn.edu/rehabilitation-in-prison/. Accessed 30 Mar. 2020. 

Sawyer, Wendy. State's Policy Incarceration Growth. Prison Policy Initiative, 

     9 Jan. 2018, www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/women_overtime.html. 

     Accessed 30 Mar. 2020. Infographic. 

Just Mercy Reading #3: The Why Behind Stevenson's Just Mercy

Blog Post #3: Author's Purpose Analysis

At the beginning of Just Mercy, we saw how Walter was burdened by inequality and sentenced to die for a crime he didn't commit. Then, we witnessed how racism and discrimination affected Walter's community - and the black community as a whole.

But in these last few chapters, Stevenson changed gears. He introduced a lot of new characters, like Walter, Trina or Ian, who were his former clients and takes a look at Ralph Myer's highly anticipated testimony in Walters's trial.

At first glimpse - all of these people and ideas in this reading seem unrelated. What is Stevenson trying to do by introducing so many different topics in this last reading? What are these last chapters leading us, the readers, to? I think, more than anything, in these last few chapters, Stevenson is giving us a glimpse into why he wrote Just Mercy.

The first part of the reading focused mainly on the trials of many of Stevenson's former clients (who were all childhood criminals and are all serving life sentences). Stevenson discusses the implications of being a childhood criminal:

"Children who commit serious crimes long have been vulnerable to adult prosecution and punishment in many states, but the development of juvenile justice systems has meant that most child offenders were sent to juvenile detention facilities. Juvenile systems vary across the United States, but most states would have kept Trina, Ian or Antonia [his clients] in juvenile custody until they turned eighteen or twenty-one. AT most they might have stayed in custody until age twenty-five or odder...  In an earlier era, if you were thirteen or fourteen when you committed a crime, you would find yourself in the adult system with a lengthy sentence only if the crime was unusually high-profile." (157)

This passage really resonated with me. It just underlined an underlying idea Stevenson has been trying to point out the whole time: that we do live in a criminal justice system that is unfair.
All of the people Stevenson mentions here: Trina, Ian or Antonia: they all are sentenced to die. To die in a cell. To die for a crime they only committed as a teenager. To die for a reason that wouldn't have mattered if their judge hadn't been discriminatory, their background hadn't had been ruthless, or they had lived just miles away in a different state.


(A quick look into the very interesting and sad problem of youth confinement. Note that 10% of juvenile youth are locked in adult prisons - likely to life sentences)

This led me to what I got from this last reading. To me, what Stevenson is trying to do in Just Mercy is simple: he is trying to prove that inequality in the courts is real, it has been covertly done for many decades, and that fighting against inequality can make a difference.

There are two big parts to Stevenson's argument in Just Mercy. He exposes a faulty criminal justice system that does discriminate and treat people poorly. He also does encourage us to fight injustice ourselves, and that doing this does cause change.

The first part of Stevenson's argument is clear. He recalls stories like Walter's, Trina, or Ian's to show that we do live in a criminal justice system that isn't fair.

The second part of Stevenson's argument can be seen in Ralph's testimony in court. When Ralph testifies, everything is against him. He is uneducated and bullied by the legal system. Nevertheless, he prevails. Walter's case is much better off as a result. Through Stevenson's perseverance, he is able to put up a fight for Walter - and to beat the system.

This second part of Stevenson's argument is also exemplified at the end of the reading. In a surprising reveal at the end of the final chapter, a prison guard, who was previously mean to Stevenson, cries in front of him. The man is touched by Stevenson's work and sympathizes with and is passionate about helping a mentally ill patient Stevenson helped defend. Due to mental illness, this patient, Avery, has an obsession with having a chocolate milkshake.  Stevenson is excited to hear when he enters Avery's cell that this guard did, in fact, bring him to Wendy's for his special treat.

"You know, I [The guard] guess what I'm trying to say is that I think it's good what you're doing. I got so angry coming up that there were plenty of times when I really wanted to hurt somebody, just because I was angry. I made it to eighteen, joined the military, and you know, I've been okay. But sitting in that courtroom brought back memories and I think I realized how I'm still kind of angry." (201)

We really do witness the effects of Stevenson's work in this chapter. He makes a difference, not only for his clients but also for the people who stand by them and watch them at a distance. Stevenson inspires these people to do right on their own. His argument, that injustice is real and that we can fight it very much from a patriotic sense rings true. 

But actually how much can we do on our own to combat injustice? I think, surprisingly a lot. With more and more social media outreach for rallies and protests, we are entering an age where fighting injustice has become very real and very accessible. Stevenson's argument does resonate with me, and his perspective is well supported.

Works Cited

Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption. First edition. 

     New York: Spiegel & Grau, 2014. 

Sawyer, Wendy. Youth Confinement Pie Chart. Prison Policy Initiative, 19 Dec. 2019, 

     www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/youth2019.html. Accessed 24 Mar. 2020. Map. 

Just Mercy Reading #2: Capital Punishment | The McMillians vs. The American Dream | Ralph's Story

Blog #2: Free Choice Piece

Now writing this blog post, I'm finished just about halfway through Just Mercy. And although there haven't been any big legal surprises yet (in Walter's favor), these last few chapters have still been really interesting. In the first few chapters, Stevenson just focused on Walter's case. But in what I've just been reading, Stevenson really comes face to face with underlying issues of racism and poverty in Walter's community.

This is really important to Just Mercy's plot progression. Now knowing a little bit about Walter's case, Stevenson's choice to look a little more closely at racism at its heart helps us understand what steps Stevenson needs to take to secure Walter's freedom.

For the whole book now, we haven't really seen or learned much about Walter and his past. This changes in Chapter five, when Stevenson visits Walter's family and talks about his case.

The McMillan's are very poor. They are a big family and their house is very dilapidated. Yet, when Stevenson arrives, the McMillian's are very kind and appreciative, with Mrs. McMillian even offering to make Stevenson dinner.

I pulled into the driveway and was surprised at the profound disrepair; this was a poor family's home. The front porch was propped on three cinder blocks piled precariously beneath wood flooring that showed signs of rot. The blue window panes were in desperate need of paint, and a makeshift set of stairs that didn't connect to the structure was the only access to the home (94).

The whole family is a victim of poverty and racism.

What caught my eye, though was something we learn later: they are the family of someone on death row and yet they really don't know what's happening to Walter. This really is saying something about Walter's community. Racism has everything to do with Walter's court case. It affects his ruling, but it also affects his presence in the community, and who is backing him up. With an all-white jury and white judges, and a division between white and black communities, Walter's family is cut out of the picture. And with a poor background, they just don't have the same abilities to support Walter.

It also supports the idea that racism and discrimination are a trap that even over several generations, you can't get out of. The American Dream isn't very real for Walter's family -- all of whom are poor, uneducated, and can't escape their reality.

Another important character I just read in the next chapter was Charlie. Although he is only 100 pounds, five feet tall, and fourteen years old, Charlie is charged as an adult for shooting his stepfather. We later learn Charlie shoots and kills his stepfather in self-defense. But being black, Charlie is nevertheless sent to an adult prison where he is assaulted. Charlie means no harm - but the legal system he is in uses every excuse it has to put him up to the maximum sentence for a minimum sentence crime - because of his background: his race. Like we saw in Walter's case - changing a life sentence ruling to a death row punishment is not too difficult. With black suspects, like Charlie, being in the prison system means being exposed to the worst possible punishments.

This boy seemed way too short, way too thin, and way too scared to be fourteen. I looked at the jailer, who seemed to share my surprise at how small and terrified the child appeared. I asked them to remove the handcuffs. Sometimes in jails like this, the guards resit uncuffing clients, arguing that it's not the same or permitted to the handcuffs of a suspect during a legal visit. They worry that if a person gets upset or becomes violet, being uncuffed will make him or her harder to subdue (121).

Charlie's case makes an interesting argument against capital punishment and life sentences. Is it right to even have punishments like a life sentence? Does anybody really deserve this? In cases like Charlie's court decisions can be so complex. What is the point of a life sentence for someone who is still learning how to behave, and someone that can still learn? It seems like the life sentence emerges in Charlies and in Walter's case as an easy way to put troublesome people away - submerging them into a never-ending legal process, or getting rid of them nevertheless. 

One third character Stevenson dives deep into in this reading is Ralph Myers. Although Ralph is white, he too is easily manipulated by a prison system that is trying to control him. He is poor, white and serves as a pawn for a corrupt legal system to indite Walter. In an interview with Stevenson, Ralph admits to being coerced into accusing Walter of being involved in the murder. Myers lives in the same reality of Charlie and Walter. They are all below the system - all for various reasons and deserve fair rulings. 

Works Cited

Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption. First edition. 

    New York: Spiegel & Grau, 2014. 

Just Mercy Reading#1: Just Mercy: A John Grisham-esce Legal Escapade

Blog #1: Rhetorical Analysis

I just started reading Bryan Stevenson's Just Mercy, and I have to say, I enjoy it. Just Mercy will for many readers be a new and enjoyable experience. Stevenson's novel artfully combines elements of a John Grisham legal thriller with a deep dive into racism and mistreatment in American's criminal justice system that is a neverending rush.

Throughout Just Mercy, we learn Stevenson comes from a legal background. After attending Harvard Law, Stevenson goes on to defend the underprivileged in the court of law in Alabama. His job is to find clients, to develop their images, and to weave evidence together to produce compelling arguments. Just Mercy is a testament to Stevenson in this respect. By drawing in a wide variety of sources, and information -- as diverse as the story of an old man, an encounter Stevenson had with police brutality, to a record of a failed electrocution, "At 8:40 P.M, a third charge of electricity, thirty seconds in duration, was passed through Mr. Evan's body. At 8:44, the doctors pronounced him dead. The execution of John Evans took fourteen minutes (55)," Just Mercy builds a substantial narrative defending death row inmates and people of color from our corrupt criminal justice system.

                          (A quick look at the 2019 movie rendition of the acclaimed novel)

Stevenson adds a lot of flavor to his novel with colorful and emotional commentary. In one scene, a judge has to decide where to move a death row sentencing. This movement of the case could have a major implication: it could mean a shift to an all-white jury. "When the judge suggested that it be moved to a neighboring county so that witnesses wouldn't have far to travel, Chestnut remained hopeful. Almost all of the bordering counties had fairly large African American populations. Wilcox County was 72 Percent black; Conecuh was 46 percent black; Clarke County was 45 percent black... Only affluent Baldwin county to the south... was atypical... The judge took very little time deciding where the trial should be moved... We'll go to Balwin County. (62)" Commentary has a new meaning in Stevenson's novel - there is a very palpable conversation taking place between Stevenson and his evidence throughout the novel.

Personally, I like the feel of Just Mercy as a crime thriller with Stevenson taking on racism head-on.
This kind of John Grisham feel makes Just Mercy very engaging and very readable.

Stevenson's story is very engaging because he keeps it real. Before diving into Walter's case, Stevenson shows the dark side of being a death row lawyer - how in many of his cases, he is just too late, and can't help his clients. We are rooting for Walter the whole time during his case. Even though we might have read the back cover of Just Mercy, we still have this feeling that Walter may not win - and how wrong would that b.

 Exposing this part of the law is also important to how we understand the story and not just it's rhetoric. Good legal arguments are not always enough to win cases. Sometimes winning a case is about finding the right witness, the right person to tell a story - especially in an area where not everybody's stories are valued equally.

The emotional energy behind Stevenson's commentary makes good storytelling, but I still felt this kind of commentary was at times a little misleading. In one scene, Stevenson makes out an extramarital affair of one of his clients, Walter McMillian. "As it was, Walter didn't initially think much of the flirtations of Karen Kelly, a young white woman he'd me at the Waffle House... She was attractive, but he didn't take her too seriously. when he flirtations became more explicit, Walter hesitated, and then persuaded himself that no one would ever know. (27)" Stevenson makes out Walter's affair to be completely socially acceptable, and Karen to be completely usual. Later we learn Karen was implicated years later for heavy drug use. To me, it just didn't seem possible that Karen, the kind loving women that Walter found, according to Stevenson, could just a year or two later become a drug dealer, but how Stevenson was portraying her, as just a little too normal, felt just a little weird to me. Sometimes Stevenson's choices to dramatize his characters, and to make them a little more real, go a little too far.

When Walter goes to prison for a crime he didn't commit - we are at awe. As I continue to read Stevenson's book, however, I hope he does also make sure to have lots of information and facts to support whatever argument he will make. Although good storytelling is important, I want to make sure Stevenson continues providing well-supported arguments as to why something is actually true, etc.

Works Cited

Image from Just Mercy Movie. San Diego Gay & Lesbian News, Hale Media, 13 Jan. 2020, 

     sdgln.com/entertainment/2020/01/13/movie-review-just-mercy. Accessed 4 Mar. 2020. 

Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption. First edition. New York: Spiegel & Grau, 2014.