thesis of chapter 2 of just mercy

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Just Mercy (Bryan Stevenson) - Chapters 1 and 2 Summary & Analysis

“Mockingbird Players.” This chapter begins with Stevenson’s description of a phone call he received from a judge warning him away from defending Walter McMillian. After referring to how he had met with five men on death row (including Walter) and to the development of his long-term plan to provide legal services for “people on death row in Alabama,” Stevenson begins the narration of the crime with which Walter was accused.

Stevenson first describes how Walter worked his way into a position of relative respect in Monroe County, Alabama, the setting for the famous novel about racism and the law, “To Kill a Mockingbird.” He also includes a description of how the novel’s fame brought about the creation of a theatrical troupe, The Mockingbird Players, mandated to recreate the novel for the stage. Stevenson then narrates the beginnings of Walter’s encounters...

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Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Introduction - Chapter 3

Chapters 4-6

Chapters 7-10

Chapters 11-13

Chapter 14 - Epilogue

Key Figures

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Summary and Study Guide

Part memoir , part exhortation for much-needed reform to the American criminal justice system, Bryan Stevenson’s Just Mercy is a heartrending and inspirational call to arms written by the activist lawyer who founded the Equal Justice Initiative, an Alabama-based organization responsible for freeing or reducing the sentences of scores of wrongfully convicted individuals. Stevenson’s memoir weaves together personal stories from his years as a lawyer with strong statements against racial and legal injustice, drawing a clear through line from Antebellum slavery and its legacy to today’s still-prejudiced criminal justice system.

Between the 1970s and 2014, when Stevenson’s memoir was published, the U.S. prison population increased from 300,000 to 2,300,000 – the highest incarceration rate in the world. Of those incarcerated, 58 percent identify as Black or Hispanic. The War on Drugs and “Tough on Crime” policing policies disproportionately target juveniles, women, people of color, the poor, and individuals with mental health issues, all too often the victims of inflated sentences and wrongful convictions resulting in the death penalty. Stevenson animates these harrowing statistics with stories from his years as a criminal defense lawyer, personalizing the political through a powerful series of cases.

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The narrative backbone is the story of Walter McMillian , a young black man falsely accused of murdering a white woman in the small southern town where To Kill a Mockingbird is set. Chapters alternate between chronicling his trial, conviction, and the long road to justice and recounting the stories of other wrongfully persecuted individuals, including a 14-year old named Charlie who is sentenced to life in prison without parole for killing his mother’s abusive boyfriend. Taken as a whole, Just Mercy asks readers to consider the notion that the opposite of poverty is not wealth – it is justice.

By the start of the first chapter, “Mockingbird Players”, Stevenson is a member of the bar in both Georgia and Alabama, and has found himself defending McMillian for the murder of 18-year old Ronda Morrison. While there is no solid evidence pointing to McMillian as the murderer, false accusations, political machinations, and implicit bias against a black man known to be involved in an adulterous interracial relationship all add up to the accusation sticking.

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The chapters that focus on cases outside of McMillian’s demonstrate the staggering legal injustices delivered upon marginalized populations and expose the larger, systemic causes and institutionalized prejudice at work in their uneven treatment.

Chapter 2, “Stand” details several incidents of police brutality and racial profiling, including an encounter Stevenson himself had while listening to music in front of his apartment late one night.

Chapter 4, “Old Rugged Cross”, describes the story of Vietnam War veteran Herbert Richardson, whose case illuminates the struggles Veterans often have in obtaining the medical and mental health support they need, while Chapter 6 (“Surely Doomed”) depicts how widespread legal injustice is for juveniles, many of whom are tried and convicted as adults and receive much harsher sentences than they deserve.

Chapter 8 introduces readers to Tracy, Ian, and Antonio, who continue Stevenson’s exploration of incarcerated children, in these cases for non-homicidal offenses. Through their stories, Stevenson exposes the truth about how children of color are often incarcerated or worse for the same acts white children engage in with impunity. At fourteen, Antonio Nunez became the youngest person in U.S. history to be condemned to death for a crime in which no one was physically injured.

Chapter 10, “Mitigation,” turns its critical lens on the poor and mentally ill prison population, who –though corrections officers are not properly trained to handle mental health issues – make up more than half of those currently incarcerated. The case-in-point in this chapter is Avery Jenkins, who committed murder during a psychotic episode. Through Stevenson’s interventions, he is ultimately moved to a mental health facility better equipped to care for him, one step closer to a society that chooses to rehabilitate rather than incarcerate.

Chapter 12 touches upon impoverished women imprisoned for infant mortality beyond their control, and welfare reform designed to persecute poor, single mothers, and Chapter 14 focuses on physically, cognitively, and behaviorally disabled children who end up imprisoned. Chapter 16 ends on a hopeful note, as on May 17, 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court announced that sentences of life imprisonment without parole imposed on children convicted of non-homicidal crimes was cruel and unusual punishment.

The chapters that trace the unfolding of Walter McMillian’s case build a narrative arc between the late 1980s, when McMillian was accused, and his eventual release in 1993. According to Stevenson’s account, the case involves countless missteps, including sentencing McMillian to the death penalty before his trial officially began, moving the trial proceedings to a wealthier, and thereby whiter, community, where McMillian was less likely to be judged by a jury of his peers, and ignoring several eyewitness accounts that definitively gave the defendant an alibi. Police misconduct (including a paid testimony), perjury, witnesses flipping, and rejected appeals to the state circuit courts also created setbacks. After less than three hours of deliberation, and despite his obvious innocence, the jury found McMillian guilty of the murder of Ronda Morrison and sentenced him to death.

Late-breaking assistance from the television show 60 Minutes raised awareness of the dubiousness of McMillian’s case, and convinced the Monroe County district attorney to bring in the Alabama Bureau of Investigation (ABI). Ultimately, the court ruled in favor of McMillian, and after six years on death row, he was released and cleared of all charges. McMillian became a cause célèbre for criminal justice reform, resulting in the Equal Justice Initiative being selected for an International Human Rights Award.

Chapter 15, “Broken”, ends with an impassioned plea for a reevaluation of the ethics of capital punishment. By 1999, increasing media coverage of the high rate of wrongful convictions finally began to lessen reliance on the death penalty. In the closing chapter of Just Mercy , the lesson Stevenson impresses upon his readers is the urgent need to acknowledge the brokenness of society-wide indifference to the most vulnerable populations in America. Criminal justice reform must begin and end with mercy .

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by Bryan Stevenson

Just mercy study guide.

Bryan Stevenson 's memoir Just Mercy : A Story of Justice and Redemption covers the author's career as a public interest lawyer in the Deep South, focusing primarily on Walter McMillian 's wrongful conviction and sentencing to death row. Though Stevenson and his Equal Justice Initiative nonprofit are ultimately successful in exonerating McMillian and many other condemned people whose cases are recounted in the memoir, Stevenson advocates for the continued need for increased awareness of the injustice of mass incarceration, the death penalty, and the practice of trying and sentencing children as adults.

After its publication, Just Mercy received the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence, and Stevenson was awarded an NAACP Image Award. In 2019, the book was adapted for the screen.

Just Mercy Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for Just Mercy is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

What does the information regarding Bill Hooks literal hookup with Walter's case reveal about the criminal justice system and the sheriffs department in Monroe County?

The information regarding Bill Hooks' testimony revealed the corruption and racial bias within the department, as well as the wrongful convictions purused and enacted by the criminal justice system.

What does the information regarding Bill Hooks literal hookup with Walter's case reveal about the criminal justice system and the sheriffs department in Monroe County? How does this help Walter's case?

The information the officers received from Bill Hooks was a complete fabrication. Bill Hooks made a false statement that framed Walter and led to a false conviction. The discovery that the investigators knowingly and purposely used false...

(Page 193) When considering Walter Macmillan's freedom, what does Stevenson mean when he says that "this whole nightmare...would likely never be completely over for him"?

After six years on death row, Walter McMillian is exonerated and freed. Stevenson recounts how close he and Walter remained after the case closed. Walter's life is not necessarily happy after his release: the trauma of living on death row stays...

Study Guide for Just Mercy

Just Mercy study guide contains a biography of Peter Abelard, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About Just Mercy
• Just Mercy Summary
• Character List

Lesson Plan for Just Mercy

• About the Author
• Study Objectives
• Common Core Standards
• Introduction to Just Mercy
• Relationship to Other Books
• Bringing in Technology
• Notes to the Teacher
• Related Links
• Just Mercy Bibliography

Wikipedia Entries for Just Mercy

• Introduction

Home — Essay Samples — Literature — Just Mercy — Bryan Stevenson’s Book Just Mercy: Rhetorical Analysis

Bryan Stevenson’s Book Just Mercy: Rhetorical Analysis

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Words: 424 |

Published: Jun 9, 2021

Words: 424 | Page: 1 | 3 min read

Bryan Stevenson, nonfiction book Just Mercy, last strategy Stevenson, racial injustice, Stevenson, personal experience, emotional experience, black man, child Stevenson, civil rights lawyer, Mercy

• Berry III, W. W. (2015). Implementing Just Mercy. (https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/tlr94&div=14&id=&page=)
• Hanink, P. (2018). Bryan Stevenson, Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption. (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1462474516685709)
• Sutton, J. L. (2016). Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption: Bryan Stevenson (New York: Spiegel & Grau, 2014) (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10402659.2016.1237214?journalCode=cper20)
• Pameticky, A. (2019). A Review and Brief Analysis of Bryan Stevenson’s” Just Mercy” and the 2018 Young Adult Adaptation. Kansas English, 100. (https://journals.wichita.edu/index.php/ke/article/view/284)
• Clarke, A. W. (2016). Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption. National Lawyers Guild Review, 73(1), 59. (https://www.proquest.com/docview/1869001200?pq-origsite=gscholar&fromopenview=true)

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