Criminal Justice In Bryan Stevenson's 'Just Mercy'

While reading, Bryan Stevenson’s, Just Mercy, I noted that his central theme was to accentuate the racial bias against African Americans in the criminal justice system. Throughout his book, Bryan discussed a variety of injustices between the African American community and the Criminal justice system. The disparities within the African American community and the involve the social stigma of them being criminals; their engagement in drug activities, thieves, and murders. The skewed perception that the justice system has toward African Americans, threatens the livelihood of the individuals associated with that community. Therefore, the police officers will avenge the neighborhood from the heathenistic ways of the African American comminutes by …show more content…
For example, the more exposure Stevenson had with the cases, the more he realized the number of individuals wrongfully accused for crimes they did nothing commit, specifically the fact that African Americans were targeted for these crimes. Additionally, prosecutions were longer for individuals who were African Americans as opposed to non-African Americans. The juvenile justice system similar in term of the odd unfair laws against the criminal justice. For example, being sentences life in prison for breaking and entering. Stevenson stated “Under Californian law, a juvenile has to be at least sixteen to be sentenced to life imprisonment without parole of a murder, but her is no minimal age for kidnapping (pg. 156). Additionally, in some southern states, if you were as young as thirteen of fourteen, you would be tried as an adult only if the crime was unusually high profile or committed by a black child against a white person. An example of a wrongfully accused case is the George Stinney case. Stinney was a fourteen-year-old boy that was prosecuted for the death of two white girls, in South Carolina in 1944. The girls were reportedly picking flowers and never returned home. Stenny and his sister testified the girls approached them while passing and asked if the saw any flowers. The following day, white girls were …show more content…
Williams statement, “I’m here!”. Though Stevens was confused as to what she was referring too when she constantly repeated that phrase. She maintained her ground and affirmed to the court that was present, she mentioned it to Stevenson twice and the third time shouted it into the courtroom “I am here!”. I don’t blame Stevenson for being confused at first, but once he recognizes the connotations of Mrs. Williams outburst, he stated, “In that moment, I felt something peculiar, a deep sense of recognition, I smiled now because I knew she was saying to the room, ‘I may be old, I may be poor, I may be black, but I’m here. I’m here because I’ve got this vision, of justice that compels ne to be a witness. I’m here because I’m supposed to be here. I’m here because you can’t keep me away’” (pg.