Just Mercy Analysis

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Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption The justice system in the United States is far from perfect. Then again, nothing in this world is perfect. There have been many incidents of false convictions that may have even cost an innocent person’s life. They were sent for a death penalty for a crime that they didn’t commit. Most had to do with a racial bias, but worst of all, most of the time they didn’t have fair representation to prove of their innocence. They were either too poor to afford a decent lawyer, or they were restricted from representation at all. This is diligently emphasized in the non-fiction book, “Just Mercy” by Bryan Stevenson, that focuses on the author’s real-life experiences as a public lawyer who voluntarily fought …show more content…
In 1988, McMillian was convicted of killing an 18-year-old girl at a dry cleaner. There were six black witnesses that said he was at a fish fry at that time, but it was against a white man’s word. The community was urging the police to arrest someone already and McMillian seemed like the perfect match because he was poor and black. Even the evidence did not prove to be logical because it was just one man’s statement, which frequently changed, but he was found guilty anyway and was put on death row for six years. The jury did not help at all either because it consisted of eleven whites and one black. McMillian was eventually exonerated in 1993, but it still doesn’t account for the fact that he had all the evidence to prove that he was innocent, yet the racial segregation was too overpowering for a black man to be free of …show more content…
There has been less public support for it, but it has improved since then. The amount of new death sentences have been decreasing as well as the amount of executions. The process of going through a death sentence is agonizing and excessive. In fact, life in prison is actually cheaper than an execution. An execution is a horrific experience to witness, and I would imagine, even worst to go through. A big flaw that Stevenson described in his book was the execution of innocent people and the process of the execution being broken, causing a more painful