McMillian grew up in southern Alabama in the 1950s. The centerpiece of Stevenson’s book is the legal saga of Walter McMillian, or “Johnny D” to his friends.
And I say that as someone emphatically on Stevenson’s side of our vexing debates. But as a brief against capital punishment, it’s terse, even baffling. If you like being kicked in the gut by a guy who knows how to write, Just Mercy is a great read. Stevenson’s a young lawyer, EJI a vision rich only in aspirations: “The office was cold in the winter” – mind you, that’s winter in Montgomery, Alabama – “it was almost impossible to keep squirrels out of the attic, and there wasn’t enough electricity to run the copier and a coffeepot at the same time without blowing a fuse.” Lawyers don’t take these jobs for the money or the splendid offices or the lavish expense accounts. Just Mercy takes the reader back a few decades. For the past six months, EJI repeatedly has called for new leadership at the ADOC.”) (“During his four-year tenure, EJI issued reports documenting serious sexual and physical abuse by prison guards and dangerous conditions that have led to extraordinarily high rates of violence in Alabama’s prisons. They lobby for legal and political change, too: the website just happily noted the resignation of Kim Thomas, head of Alabama’s Department of Corrections. Their online history of racial injustice is impeccably done.
Over the years they’ve done a lot of extended political journalism, most recently a suitably wrenching report on lynching in America. Stevenson’s on that case, too.ĮJI also does journeyman work representing those on death row. This term the Supreme Court will decide Toca v.
States and circuit courts have split on whether the ruling is retroactive. Alabama, which ruled it unconstitutional to give a minor a mandatory sentence of life without parole. The organization litigates on behalf of those imprisoned as children: Stevenson prevailed before the Supreme Court in Miller v. He founded the Equal Justice Initiative, based in Alabama. He won a vaunted MacArthur Foundation Fellowship in 1995. In the circles of public interest law, Bryan Stevenson is – take your pick – a legend or a saint. View WHAT'S WRONG WITH CAPITAL PUNISHMENT?. Review of JUST MERCY: A Story of Justice and Redemption, by Bryan Stevenson
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