My Final Thoughts

Hello readers!

I am sad to tell you that this will be my final post about Just Mercy by Brian Stevenson. I hope you have enjoyed discovering more about the ins and outs of America's legal system with me. In this post I will be answering a question that has been brought up through the content on every page of this book: is America's legal system unfair, and should it be reevaluated?

I must say that Just Mercy has left no doubt in my mind that the answer is a resounding yes; time after time our legal system has failed the very citizens who trust it to bring order and justice to our country. However, I am going to delve deeper into how exactly it is unfair, and why we should reevaluate it.

The main reason why America's legal system is unjust is because it has been proven time and time again to be biased, whether against people of color or people who suffer from various disabilities.

Take the case of Walter, for example. Walter was a very kind, respectable man, who did nothing wrong except have an affair with a white woman. This put him under heavy scrutiny by the community, and later made him the #1 suspect in a case that he knew next to nothing about. Stevenson writes that:

"...there was no evidence against McMillian-- no evidence except that he was an African American man involved in an adulterous interracial affair, which meant he was reckless and possibly dangerous, even if he had no prior criminal history and a good reputation. Maybe that was evidence enough" (34).

This quote clearly conveys Stevenson's frustration with the conviction of Walter, and gives a solid example of how a jury eventually deemed him guilty because he has an interracial affair. This is further backed up by the fact that the white woman who he had the affair with, Karen Kelly, who had been previously suspected of criminal activity, had not been put on death row, and yet Walter was. Stevenson could not have said it more perfectly: it wasn't the evidence that the court was concerned with, it was the race of the man in question.

A statement from Karen Kelly also points to the conclusion that the court system is racially biased  when she tells Stevenson:

"'I feel like I'm the reason that he's in prison. He's just not the kind of person that would kill somebody, I know that"' ... "'Sheriff Tate only had one thing on his mind. He just kept saying, 'Why you want to sleep with n******? Why you want to sleep with n******?' It was awful'" (138).

It is absolutely repulsive that a sheriff would say such offensive and intolerant things. It shows that he already had this bias going into the case, before he had examined much of the evidence, and that his questioning of Karen wasn't entirely about the facts of the case. This initial reaction by the sheriff was probably in part responsible for the biased treatment that Walter endured for the remainder of the case. 

Stevenson also discusses how people with mental illnesses and handicaps, such as PTSD, are more likely to end up in jail for a crime when they should be going to a hospital. For example, in the case of Avery Jenkins, Avery suffered severe trauma from his childhood in abusive foster homes, and was prone to seizures and psychotic episodes by the time he was fifteen. It was during one of these such episodes that he stabbed a man, thinking that he was a demon. Because of this, he was imprisoned and put on death row. A quote from Stevenson shows how unfair it is for mentally disabled people to be held accountable for actions they can't control:

"I argued to the judge that not taking Avery's mental health issues into consideration at trial was as cruel as saying to someone who has lost his legs, 'You must climb these stairs with no assistance, and if you don't, you're just lazy.' Or to say to someone who is blind, 'You should get across this busy interstate highway unaided, or you're just cowardly.'" (199)

These analogies effectively put into perspective how ludicrous it is to judge people with mental illnesses when they are expected to live in society with no assistance or hospitalization of any kind. It points out a major flaw in our justice system, because people are not getting the help they need and are sent to prison instead, which in reality makes many mental illnesses worse given the trauma that life in prison creates. 

The cases that Stevenson presents where a clear bias is present are exactly the kind of cases that are way too common, and show that our legal system is indeed not fair. Just Mercy has made me realize this by providing real cases and statistics emphasizing the injustice that has been documented in various situations, and how they have had negative affects on the people that they involve.

America's legal system is incredible unfair, due to the presence of bias against minorities, and therefore should be reevaluated before more lives are changed permanently because of a court ruling.