Just Mercy To Me Research Paper
Mer·cy, noun: kindness or help given to people who are in a very bad or desperate situation (Merriam-Webster). That is the definition of mercy and the key point in the book Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson. Throughout the book there are many different cases brought up of poor, innocent, African Americans who face a corrupt criminal justice system and are put on death row for crimes they did not commit.
Bryan Stevenson, the author and lawyer of the book, runs a non-profit law firm to represent those who are put on death row and cannot afford to pay for a lawyer. The book Just Mercy to me is a cry for help. It puts past occurrences of racial profiling that our country faced and is still facing today in the hands of thousands of readers. All of which are true, hard to believe …show more content…
“George Stinney, a fourteen-year-old black boy, was executed by the State of South Carolina on June 16, 1944” (Stevenson 157). George was arrested for the murder of two young white girls because he saw the day they were murdered. “The girls had approached them while they were playing outside and asked where they could find flowers” (Stevenson 157). It was claimed by the sheriff that George confessed to the murders although no signed statement was presented. His family was told to leave the town or else. Fourteen-year-old George was left alone to face an all-white jury that sentenced him to death. This was a young kid who was “Small even for his age” (Stevenson 158). This is wrong and “Years later, rumors surfaced that a white man from a prominent family confessed on his deathbed to killing the girls” (Stevenson 159). All because George was a young, poor, African American who did not have the proper representation to appeal the ruling, was dead 81 days after being approached by two young girls. This was the past and there are a few things we can do today to help those who are put in these kind of
Bryan Stevenson, the author and lawyer of the book, runs a non-profit law firm to represent those who are put on death row and cannot afford to pay for a lawyer. The book Just Mercy to me is a cry for help. It puts past occurrences of racial profiling that our country faced and is still facing today in the hands of thousands of readers. All of which are true, hard to believe …show more content…
“George Stinney, a fourteen-year-old black boy, was executed by the State of South Carolina on June 16, 1944” (Stevenson 157). George was arrested for the murder of two young white girls because he saw the day they were murdered. “The girls had approached them while they were playing outside and asked where they could find flowers” (Stevenson 157). It was claimed by the sheriff that George confessed to the murders although no signed statement was presented. His family was told to leave the town or else. Fourteen-year-old George was left alone to face an all-white jury that sentenced him to death. This was a young kid who was “Small even for his age” (Stevenson 158). This is wrong and “Years later, rumors surfaced that a white man from a prominent family confessed on his deathbed to killing the girls” (Stevenson 159). All because George was a young, poor, African American who did not have the proper representation to appeal the ruling, was dead 81 days after being approached by two young girls. This was the past and there are a few things we can do today to help those who are put in these kind of