Just Mercy is timely in view of two recent cases in which grand juries declined to indict white policemen involved in the deaths of black suspects in Ferguson, Mo., and New York City.
Bryan Stevenson has written a chilling book about miscarriages of justice in the criminal justice system, particularly when blacks are prosecuted.
Descended from slaves, Stevenson grew up in a segregated neighborhood in Delaware. He graduated from Harvard Law School and soon decided to take on the appeals of death row inmates in Alabama.
The book focuses on Walter McMillian, a mid-40s black man who was convicted of murdering an 18-year-old white woman in 1986, even though there was no direct evidence linking him to the crime. Desperate to make an arrest, police had targeted McMillian after learning that he was having an extramarital affair with another white woman, which was regarded as a serious matter in Alabama.
McMillian had a persuasive alibi because several friends said he was with them at the time of the murder, but that did not sway the jury. After an appeals court overturned McMillian’s conviction and ordered a new trial, the state finally dropped all charges against McMillian, who was released in 1993 after spending five years on Death Row.
Stevenson writes persuasively about racism and serious failures in the justice system that likely will leave readers feeling revulsion and anger.
The book catalogues the awful practice of sentencing juveniles, young mothers and mentally ill defendants to long prison terms — and sometimes to Death Row.
Trina Garnett was the youngest of 12 children in Chester, Pa. Her father regularly assaulted her mother. At age 14 Trina accidentally set a fire that killed two boys. Despite her young age, mental illness and history of abuse, she was sentenced to life in prison. After a correction officer raped her, she became pregnant and gave birth to her baby while handcuffed to a prison bed.
A Florida man spent 18 years in solitary confinement in a concrete box the size of a small closet for a crime committed at age 13. His mental health deteriorated and several times he tried to kill himself.
The United States has the highest rate of incarceration in the world, and America is the only nation that sentences men to life in prison for crimes committed when they were juveniles. 
By 2010, Florida had condemned more than 100 such men to life imprisonment for non-homicide offenses. The U.S. Supreme Court finally ruled that such sentences violate the Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
Stevenson never lectures or scolds. Rather, he catalogues the abuses and pushes for justice and reform. He founded the Equal Justice Initiative, which is based in Birmingham. EJI has represented numerous death row inmates and has won new trials and exonerations for many of them. Some men never had a lawyer to defend them before they were sentenced.
One of Stevenson’s endearing qualities is his compassion for the family members of prison inmates. He sheds tears with them, hugs them and listens attentively to their sadness.
The author rarely displays anger or bitterness, but on occasion his feelings spill out. Stevenson relates the case of Jimmy Dill, an Alabama man with intellectual disabilities who had been sexually and physically abused as a child. After talking on the phone with Dill just hours before he was executed, Stevenson reflected, “There was no excuse for him to have shot someone, but it didn’t make sense to kill him. I began to get angry about it. Why do we want to kill all the broken people? What is wrong with us, that we think a thing like that can be right?”
When the conversation ended, Stevenson hung up the phone with “a wet face and a broken heart.”
Bill Williams is a freelance writer in West Hartford, Conn., and a former editorial writer for The Hartford Courant. He is a member of the National Book Critics Circle and can be reached at billwaw@comcast.net.
Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption, by Bryan Stevenson; Spiegel & Grau, 336 pp., $28