Just Mercy

“Walter’s decline came quickly” (275). He becomes increasingly forgetful and begins wandering without a destination. The diagnosis is advancing dementia, which will soon leave Walter completely incapacitated. Stevenson and Walter’s family arrange for Walter to live in a facility—a difficult task given Walter’s felony record. One facility agrees to take him short term. Stevenson, horribly busy trying to secure stays of execution for several men in Alabama, visits Walter there. Walter is at first cheerful but soon begins to panic, thinking the hospital is death row and begging Stevenson to save him. Stevenson calms him down. A nurse speaks privately to Stevenson about Walter, admitting that some of the staff is scared of him, given his time in prison. Stevenson reminds her Walter was innocent, but she says prison might make a man dangerous, even if he wasn’t before. As he leaves the facility “shaken and disturbed” (280) he receives a call that despite EJI’s best efforts, a client named Jimmy Dill will be executed.

Here, Stevenson gives background on the changing methods of execution in the US. The electric chair and gas chamber have been phased out in favor of lethal injection. This is seen as more humane, despite the fact that many of the drugs have been banned for animal use on the grounds they are too painful. Better drugs are available, but European suppliers, whose countries outlawed the death penalty decades ago, will not allow their products to be use to kill humans.

Jimmy Dill, Stevenson says, was part of an “unusual crime” (283). After Jimmy badly injured a man during a fight, the injured man’s wife left him alone without proper care. The man died and Jimmy’s crime was amended to murder. His lawyers did not inform him on a plea deal on the table, so he was sentenced to death. As Stevenson calls Jimmy on the night of his execution, Stevenson recalls a childhood memory. As a child, Stevenson laughed at a boy with a stutter, not knowing any better. Stevenson’s mother ordered him to hug the boy and say “I love you.” When Stevenson did, the boy responded, “I love you too.” Jimmy tells Stevenson the same thing on the phone, even as he is about to die. Stevenson sees that he received such wondrous mercy from both Jimmy and the boy with the stutter. He resolves to keep fighting for mercy.

In 2010, thanks to the tireless work of EJI and others, the Supreme Court declares life imprisonment without parole for children (who commit non-homicide crimes) to be unconstitutional. Two years later, this is amended to include homicide. Many people, including many EJI clients, are now eligible for reduced sentences. Stevenson now focuses his efforts on banning the housing of child offenders in adult facilities—regardless of protective custody or solitary living situations. Stevenson is gratified to see that executions in Alabama have decreased substantially. And yet, he is haunted by all the people he could not save.

Believing that a better education on racial discrimination will prevent future injustice, Stevenson launches a new initiative aimed at high school students. Stevenson splits “race in America” (he focuses on black Americans, here, as opposed to say, Native or Latino people) into four institutions. The first is chattel slavery, which black people could be sold into or born into. The second is the Reconstruction Era, which occurred directly after the Civil Rights and was marked by lynchings, disenfranchisement, and the rise of the KKK. The third was Jim Crow, in which racial discrimination and bias was institutionalized and defended fiercely. The fourth, Stevenson says, is mass incarceration.

Stevenson and his staff face difficulties in getting reduced sentences for those effected by the recent Supreme Court decision. In particular, they struggle to help inmates at Angola, once a slave planation, now a notoriously brutal prison/work camp. Two older men, Joshua Carter and Robert Caston, have been disabled by harsh manual labor in Angola but are now eligible for parole. Both men are released, to the joy of all involved. After one hearing, Stevenson encounters an older black woman in the courthouse. She is not involved with either man. Her grandson was murdered by two teen boys, and their life sentences only served to wound her more. She now visits the courthouse frequently to offer support to the families of victims and perpetrators alike. She calls herself a “stonecatcher,” referring to the New Testament story of Jesus Christ halting the stoning of a woman and commanding the mob to look to their own sins rather than throw stones. She offers Stevenson a peppermint candy, which he accepts.

In the book’s short epilogue, Stevenson reflects on the life of Walter McMillian, who died in September 2013. He spent the last two years of his life living with his sister Katie. He was “kind and charming until the very end” (311). Stevenson attends the funeral and ponders all the shared anguish of the largely poor, black group of mourners. He takes comfort in the fact that Walter died as he wanted to—on God’s schedule, not the government’s schedule. He speaks to the crowd and tells them that among all the many things Walter taught him, the most important is this: “mercy is just when it is rooted in hopefulness and freely given” (313). Walter had mercy in his heart for all the people who harmed him, and it is because of this mercy he was able to make a life for himself after his release.