just mercy movie assignment

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SUBJECTS — U.S. 1945 – Present; Diversity: African-American and the Civil Rights Movement; the Law & Alabama; Civics ;

SOCIAL-EMOTIONAL LEARNING — Role Model; Human Rights; Justice; Surviving;

MORAL-ETHICAL EMPHASIS — Fairness

PG-13, 2019, 2 hrs 17 minutes.

Give your students new perspectives on race relations, on the history of the American Revolution, and on the contribution of the Founding Fathers to the cause of representative democracy. Check out TWM’s Guide:

Benefits of the Movie Possible Problems Parenting Points Selected Awards & Cast Helpful Background

Using the Movie in the Classroom

Thoughts About Discussions of Racism in America

Discussion Questions Social-Emotional Learning Moral-Ethical Emphasis Assignments and Projects

CCSS Anchor Standards Bridges to Reading Links to the Internet Bibliography

MOVIE WORKSHEETS & STUDENT HANDOUTS

TWM offers the following movie worksheets to keep students’ minds on the film and to focus their attention on the lessons to be learned from the movie.

Film Study Worksheet for a Work of Historical Fiction ; and

Worksheet for Cinematic and Theatrical Elements and Their Effects .

Teachers can modify the movie worksheets to fit the needs of each class. See also TWM’s Historical Fiction in Film Cross-Curricular Homework Project .

DESCRIPTION

This film tells the story of attorney Bryan Stevenson, focusing on his efforts to save two men from Alabama’s “Yellow Mama” electric chair.  Walter McMillian and Herbert Richardson were condemned to die due to a toxic combination of  sloppy investigations, prosecutorial misconduct, racism, and poor representation. “Based on a true story,” Just Mercy is a faithful portrayal of events as they actually occurred.

SELECTED AWARDS & CAST

Michael B. Jordan, Jamie Foxx, Brie Larson

Destin Daniel Cretton

BENEFITS OF THE MOVIE

Just Mercy shows an African American lawyer fighting injustice in the U.S. legal system.  Bryan Stevenson is a male role model.   He is aided by a white woman whose sense of fairness is outraged by inequities in the cases of men on Alabama’s death row. The film illustrates serious problems with the death penalty in the U.S.: wrongful convictions and harsh sentencing sometimes tainted by racial prejudice and inequities of wealth, and occasionally exacerbated by sloppy investigation or prosecutorial misconduct.  It is an excellent supplement for units on the American criminal justice system, capital punishment, and racism in modern America.

This Learning Guide also contains materials to assist teachers in discussions of race in the United States.

POSSIBLE PROBLEMS

Parenting points.

Watch this movie with your children.  Afterwards, discuss not only the trauma suffered by Mr. McMillian and his family, but the meaning of the wrongful conviction to black people living in Southwestern Alabama. They knew McMillian was innocent and that they, too, could be wrongfully convicted and put on death row for a crime they didn’t commit.  This film provides a basis for a discussion of the pros and cons of the death penalty (see Discussion Question #1).

Parents who would like to start or continue a discussion about racism can review the materials in the Thoughts About Discussions of Racism in America section.  Mr. Stevenson’s statements quoted in this Guide , his four-minute appearance on The Ellen Degeneres Show , and his 40-minute speech at Stanford University in 2017 provide interesting insights .

If your children are high-school-level readers, see the Bridges to Reading Section for suggested reading.  For more about Mr. Stevenson and his Equal Justice Initiative, click here .

HELPFUL BACKGROUND

The differences between the story told by Just Mercy and what actually occurred are minor. The filmmakers moved a few events involving Mr. Stevenson into the story of his efforts for Mr. McMillian and Mr. Richardson. These include the traffic stop and the strip search.

The movie focuses on Mr. Stevenson’s efforts for two death row inmates.  Each exemplifies a different problem with the application of the death penalty in the U.S.

Wrongful Convictions:   The investigation and conviction of Walter McMillian demonstrates the problem of erroneous convictions in a justice system in which one out of every nine people on death row have been convicted of crimes they did not commit.  Mr. McMillian’s wrongful conviction was caused by a number of factors working together. These included: (1) false testimony by career criminals who were given various incentives to testify, including a reduced sentence or relief from prosecution for other crimes and reward money;  (2) deficiencies in the Sheriff’s investigation of the crime;  (3) the prosecution’s misconduct in failing to comply with its obligation to disclose exculpatory evidence to the defense; and (4) deficient trial preparation by Mr. McMillian’s atorneys, in that order.  In addition, as is often true for black or brown defendants, racism played a role in the conviction.  Mr. McMillian was targeted, in part, because he had an adulterous affair with a white woman.  This was particularly disturbing to Southern racists who are incensed by the idea of sexual relations between whites and blacks.  In addition, the fact that the victim was young, pretty, middle class, and white helped increase the pressure on the sheriff’s office to find a perpetrator and on the prosecution to secure a conviction.

The McMillian family hired two competent black attorneys experienced in murder trials, paying them $17,000. (Earley 185 – 190; 214 & 215)  However, these lawyers made substantial mistakes at the trial.  McMillian’s relatives and neighbors truthfully told the jury that at the time of the murder McMillian was at home miles away from the crime scene; his relatives were hosting a fish fry to support their church.  However, as a result of the attorneys’ failure to properly prepare them to testify, these witnesses made mistakes on the stand, allowing the prosecution to impeach what would otherwise have been a winning alibi defense. (Earley 245 & 246) In addition, McMillian’s trial attorneys didn’t catch some of the weaknesses in the prosecution’s case. However, the key problem suffered by the defense was the illegal failure of the prosecution to disclose to  McMillian’s attorneys important exculpatory evidence in the files of the Sheriff’s office. For a description of the trial, see Earley pp. 225 – 257.

It is also important to note that Mr. McMillian’s conviction was not simply a matter of the white-controlled justice system rolling over an indigent black defendant. First, there were two African Americans on the jury that convicted McMillian. (Earley, p. 226.) Verdicts in criminal cases must be unanimous. Just one of the black jurors could have hung the jury. Second, there were a number of African Americans who cooperated with the prosecution.   The false testimony of Ralph Myers, a white career criminal and the primary witness against McMillian, was given crucial support by false testimony from a black man  who lied to obtain preferential treatment on a burglary charge, relief from about $500 in fines, and a $5,000 reward. (Earley pp. 229 & 303 – 307)  The investigative team included a black detective from the Alabama Bureau of Investigation, the highly regarded investigative arm of the State of Alabama.  (Stevenson p. 122)  Third, McMillian was represented by retained counsel of substantial experience who, despite some mistakes at the trial, mounted a spirited defense of Mr. McMillian.

Overly-Harsh Punishment : Another problem with capital punishment is its application in cases in which a long prison sentence would be more appropriate.  Stevenson argued convincingly that Herbert Richardson’s punishment should have been far less draconian than death in the electric chair. Mr. Richardson had served in combat during the Vietnam war in which he experienced horrific situations in battle.  He returned home with PTSD.   Richardson became obsessed with a woman who rejected him.  He planted a bomb on her porch with the intention of saving her from the device, thus becoming her hero, and getting back into her good graces.

Clearly, Mr. Richardson suffered from disordered thinking – and he also had very bad luck. Tragically, the woman’s 10-year-old niece, found the bomb and not knowing what it was, picked it up and shook it.  She died in the ensuing explosion. Richardson was poor and his court-appointed lawyer was allocated only $1,000 for the entire defense.  The lawyer did not introduce any mitigating evidence during Richardson’s trial. The jury and judge did not know of Richardson’s wartime experiences and their effect on him. He was condemned to die and ultimately was executed in Alabama’s Yellow Mama electric chair. (Stevenson, pages 74 – 91.)

Teachers should note that the argument by the character of Bryan Stevenson on the motion to dismiss the charges against Mr. McMillian is not realistic.  A competent attorney will focus first on the facts of the case. Only after a full description of the  circumstances would the lawyer start to talk about the general themes

For more about Mr. Stevenson and the Equal Justice Initiative, click here .  In addition to his legal work, Bryan Stevenson is spearheading a movement to establish memorials to victims of lynching and racial violence.  See The National Memorial for Peace and Justice .

A behind-the-scenes hero of Mr. Stevenson’s work is Eva Ansley, the co-founder and still Operations Director of the Equal Justice Initiative .  Ms. Ansley manages the operation on a day-to-day basis.

The scene in which Mr. Stevenson goes to Holman Prison for the first time and passes a gang of convicts in chains working on the prison grounds is meant to remind viewers of the chain gangs that were used in many Southern states.  Most states eliminated chain gangs by 1955 but there were a few holdouts.  Alabama began using them again in 1995 but within a year the practice was stopped due to a lawsuit.

Thoughts About Discussions of Racism in America – Understanding the Meaning of Black Lives Matter

This Learning Guide is being written in the early summer of 2020, during the Black Lives Matter demonstrations following the killing of George Floyd.  What follows are some thoughts that might assist teachers in discussions with their classes.

Why should a person not be a racist?   Some say that they are not racist in order to be fair to others —  they contend that it is unfair to treat people of another race differently than people of one’s own race. While this is undoubtedly true, and it is certainly important to treat people fairly,  recognizing people’s rights and, more broadly, fully including them within the circle of moral concern, is more fundamental than just being fair.   The idea of not being racist in order to be fair accepts the concept that there is an US and a THEM and a difference between US and THEM, that through compliance with a moral duty, we ignore.  However, recognizing our unity with other human beings is more fundamental than the fulfillment of a duty to be fair to others.

In addition, such an attitude implicitly acknowledges the “otherness” of the different race.  There is danger there.  The concept of “the other” has been the justification of much pain and death throughout history.  The Nazis classified Jews, Slavs, the Roma, political opponents, the very religious, and the handicapped as the “other” and felt justified in killing twelve million people – roughly six million Jews and six million “others.”   In the Rwandan genocide, the Hutu called the Tutsi “cockroaches” as they slaughtered men, women, and children with machetes, in the hundreds of thousands.  Thus, even when coupled with a recognition of the moral obligation to be fair, the implicit acceptance that a race of human beings are “others” is problematic.

A better reason to reject the superficial classification of race,  arises from an understanding of the equivalence of all races in their humanity, that is a recognition that: “WE ARE THEM” and “THEY ARE US;” that we are all equivalent in our humanity.  Thus, being free of racism  is a celebration of being human rather than an ethical obligation.

Unfortunately, its not quite that easy.  There is a legacy of racist attitudes in society that most people absorb, to one extent or another, as they grow up.  Even people who believe themselves to be free of prejudice, unconsciously absorb some of these attitudes. Getting rid of them is a process that is sometimes difficult and will take us out of our comfort zones. It is a process that takes years and can be lifelong. It has been likened to peeling an onion: you take away one layer and think you have dealt with your prejudice, only to find another aspect lurking in the next layer.  You take away that layer and feel triumphant, only to discover, perhaps years later, another layer of prejudice to that you want to resolve.

Why go through this process?  The reason is that when we fully realize the unity of all human beings, that “I = YOU, all of YOU,” many people will experience a step up in the level of their consciousness, an improvement in their state of being. Instinctively, most people feel good at greater connection to others and this feeling is magnified when extended to a larger group.  It becomes a source of joy that when fully realized, it lasts a lifetime — it never goes away.  Thus, a primary beneficiary of a person’s rejection of racism and the extension of the zone or moral concern to all people is the person him or herself.

Not only does an inclusive person who rejects racism and division have an additional source of joy in their life, but discarding racist attitudes, and recognizing that all people are within the zone of moral concern, allows us  approach being the best person we can be.  As we live a life of inclusion and root out the vestiges of racism we improve, perfect, and save ourselves.

Differences of race, gender, ethnicity, sexual preference, religion or political affiliation are superficial and our common humanity is a much stronger and more important factor in any debate.   There is a natural tendency in human psychology to want to have common ground with the people with whom we associate.  Those ties will be strengthened by looking for deep and important similarities rather than focusing on the superficial.  For example, there are nurturing people of every race.  There are law-abiding people of each of these groups and lawbreakers in each of these groups.  There are honest people in every group. Who would you like to be with? People of a different race who are nurturing, law-abiding, and honest or people of the same race who are not.  These are some of the more profound differences, but even in less important aspects of life, race is less important than what unites us. For example, some people in each racial group love their hometown sports teams and love to attend or to watch their games.  There are others who have no interest in sports. Would you rather watch a game of your favorite sport with someone who really gets into it and shares your knowledge and enthusiasm, or would you rather watch the game with someone who just doesn’t care and is bored out of his mind. If you loved the newest music craze would you want to attend a concert with a person who thought that your favorite band was just a lot of noise?

Being non-racist means that we accept all people as our brothers . . . and this naturally leads to activism, because we cannot sit idly by while our brothers are being oppressed.  And this means not only that the lives of all our human brothers and sisters matter, but that it is important to emphasize that George Foreman’s life matters– that in this moment in American history — that Black Lives Matter.

And as for the police, I for one am profoundly grateful to the vast majority of policemen and women who every day put their lives on the line to protect me and my family.   There are bad people about in the world and the law abiding need protection from them; we rely on the police for this.  In addition, some of the police shootings of black men appear, on close and careful analysis, to have been justified or to be “suicide by cop” a problem that transcends all races and has been around for a hundred years.

However, somehow, the culture of policing has veered toward a warrior culture — or perhaps it always had aspects of that culture and as society has evolved to be less racist, that mode of policing is no longer accepted. But the killing of George Floyd clearly shows that policing in America needs reform.

___________________

A General Principle of Discussion:  In any discussion of a sensitive topic, the key perspective should be the many things that unite all human beings: love of family and friends, an innate sense of justice, desire for acceptance, a desire for liberty, even a love of good food and having fun.  The traits that unite us are much stronger than anything that divides us, be it race, gender, national origin, sexual preference, religious belief, or political affiliation. All of the different groups in America have made important contributions to the country.  This is basic but given all the propaganda and the internet bots that focus on division, it is helpful to restate this principal.

Some Specific Thoughts:

The utter idiocy of racism is shown by the one-drop rule.  Traditionally, if you had one drop of black blood in your veins — one black ancestor many years ago —  you were considered black racially.  The purpose of this had to have been to retain white racial purity at a time when white superiority was thought necessary to justify slavery.  This false and pernicious distinction has become translated into the American society and is one of the more pernicious holdovers of slavery (on a par some would say with the electoral college and the U.S. Senate, remnants from the original design of the U.S. Constitution to protect slavery).  Everyone knows “black” people whose ancestry is clearly almost entirely white, and yet society classifies them as African American.   However, the better way to view people, is that they are just that, people.

TWM recommends showing the four-minute film clip of attorney Bryan Stevenson and actor Michael B. Jordan appearing on The Ellen Degeneres Show . Click here for a partial transcript . TWM agrees that the U.S. should have, as Mr. Stevenson suggests, a period of truth and reconciliation about racial discrimination.  Anyone who lived in the South during the time of Jim Crow laws (1870s to 1960s – 90 years), as did this author from 1950 to 1969, knows that the way that most whites treated blacks in that time was shameful. In addition, there was race-based discrimination throughout the rest of the country during that period.  Moreover, elements of racism still exist in the U.S.   On the whole and with some exceptions, life is easier in the U.S., to one degree or another, if you are white than it is if you are black.

Here’s a question for debate. The Federal government maintains a wonderful historical park at the site of the battle of Gettysburg, one of the great victories of the Union Army over Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia.  Back in the late 1800s and early 1900s in its efforts to reunify the country, the federal government allowed states and people from the South to erect more than 20 statues to Confederate generals and Army of Northern Virginia units in the park.  Should these statutes be removed or stay in the historical park?

Monuments to Confederate Generals and office holders were permitted by the federal government after the Civil War to help reunify the country after a bitter and, for the South, devastating conflict.  However, they soon became symbols of racial oppression – which is what they are today.  They should be destroyed or relegated to museums in exhibits showing examples of racial oppression.

Hundreds of Thousands White Union Soldiers Died in a Civil War that Became a Crusade to Abolish Slavery. When the Civil War began in 1861, most Northerners supported the war to preserve the Union, not to abolish slavery. At that time, most of Europe was in the hands of a resurgent aristocracy and the democratic promise of the French Revolution was in retreat. The U.S. was the world’s only major representative democracy. If the U.S. could not hold itself together the cause of democracy, not only in America but in the World, would have been set back for generations, if not discredited entirely.  However, for the South, despite its states’ rights rhetoric, the war was always about slavery; the Confederates knew it and they said it.  And, as the war progressed and the casualties mounted by the hundreds of thousands, the Union came to realize that the only justification for such a great sacrifice was the abolition of slavery.  The Union death toll in the Civil War is now estimated to be 750,000, of which 40,000 were African-Americans, allowed to fight only towards the end of the war.  More Union soldiers died in the Civil War than U.S. armed forces have died in all other wars combined.  Hundreds of thousands of these men fought to end slavery.

While the paroxysm and the bloodletting of the Civil War have gone a long way to purge the country of the sin of slavery, there remains the need to deal with 90+ years of Jim Crow and the continuing discrimination against African Americans by some Americans and by some American institutions.

The class can read what Mr. Stevenson wrote about one aspect of living as an African American in the U.S.

Because I am black, I am automatically accused of seeing racism in every problem, and that is interesting to me because I spend most of my time desperately trying to find a way to see something other than race. . . I keep looking for a place where race isn’t an issue, where you can rule out race as being responsible for anything bad that happens to you and also discount for anything that is good. A place where you can live like any normal human being. The tragedy is that you spend a lot of time trying to deny things that are race-based because you would rather not believe it. I would rather believe that the investigators and the Monroeville community [who wrongfully condemned Walter McMillian] just made a mistake and if Walter McMillian were white, he would be in the same situation as he is in now—if Ronda Morrison had been black, that the same thing would have happened. I would think more highly of that community if that were true, but the bottom line is that I can’t convince myself that it is true, and it doesn’t help black folks or white folks to act like it is true if it is not. Earley pg. 394.

USING THE MOVIE IN THE CLASSROOM

Make sure that students catch the fact that the scene at the end of the movie showing Anthony Ray Hinton being freed after 30 years on death row for a crime he did not commit refers to the character in the movie who is in the cell to the right of Walter McMillian’s cell (facing out). The film shows him saying that he is thinking of asking Bryan Stevenson to represent him. He finally did.  At a break in the filming teachers may want to tell students only that there is an interesting scene involving this character at the end of the film.

A wonderful “beyond the lesson” activity will be to have students watch, at home or in class, minutes 5 – 43 of Just Mercy: Race and the Criminal Justice System with Bryan Stevenson , Stanford University, June 27, 2017.   Teachers can ask students to write an essay summarizing the problem of over-incarceration and then describing and evaluating several different solutions to that problem.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. The fictional Herbert Richardson said, “A girl is dead because of me.” The fictional Walter McMillian responds, “That doesn’t give someone the right to kill you back.” Bryan Stevenson said, “Each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve ever done” Then again, there is part of many of us that feels that people who commit really heinous acts should be killed by the state as punishment.  There are arguments both ways.  Do you agree or disagree with capital punishment?

Suggested Response:

Different people will have different responses to this question. Below is a summary of the more common reasons that people give pro and con.  Note that the assumptions of some of these arguments are challenged by those on the other side.  Teachers may want to follow up this question with a discussion of the concept of the “social contract”, i.e, the implicit agreement among the members of a society to cooperate for social benefits and how people sacrifice some of their right to act and individual freedom in return for state protection.

Arguments in Favor of the Death Penalty

• Those who have wrongfully taken the life of another, have forfeited their own right to life.
• The punishment should fit the crime; execution is a just form of retribution, summarized as the Old Testament injunction: “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.”
• The moral outrage of the victim’s relatives and friends, and also of the entire community of law-abiding citizens; with some notable exceptions, victims’ families generally supports capital punishment. There are, however, exceptions. Some of the relatives of the victims of the white supremacist who killed nine people on June 17, 2015, in Charleston, South Carolina, during a Bible study class at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, as an act of Christian ethics, forgave the killer. (We are not naming the killer, believing that identifying a mass murderer rewards him by playing into his desire for notoriety.)
• The death penalty has a potent deterrent effect on potentially violent offenders for whom the threat of imprisonment is not a sufficient restraint. However, this is questioned by research showing that the death penalty is less effective as a deterrent to violent behavior than the prospect of long prison terms or life imprisonment.
• With the advent of DNA testing, the risk of wrongful convictions has decreased.
• It is useful for the prosecution in plea bargains, i.e., people threatened with the death penalty will admit their guilt in return for a long sentence of life imprisonment. However, there are many problems with plea bargaining, including the fact that poor defendants with fewer resources will be more likely to enter a plea bargain than wealthy defendants with greater resources.  See Learning Guide to American Violet.
• It is very costly to keep someone in prison for the remainder of their life. (On the other hand, the appeals process for capital crimes is even more expensive.)
• The modern-day death penalty is administered in a humane manner. Hanging, firing squad and electrocution have been largely replaced by lethal injection. (The response is that killing softly is still killing and still an act of extreme violence.)

Arguments Against the Death Penalty

• As emotionally satisfying as it may be to make a person who commits a particularly heinous crime pay the ultimate price, the rate of wrongful convictions is simply too high to justify imposing the final and irreversible step of execution. The argument continues that the injustice of the execution of even one wrongfully convicted person is so grave that the death penalty should never be employed. A counterargument to this is that the use of DNA evidence should greatly reduce the number of erroneous convictions.  The response is that DNA evidence is not determinative in every murder investigation. So, what would be an acceptable error rate for executions?  One in fifteen?  One in twenty?  How do you explain that to the person or to the family of the person wrongfully executed?
• The state, meaning the collective action of the people, should be an exemplar of good behavior and should not take life.  By legitimizing killing, capital punishment shows a disregard for life and undercuts the idea of the sanctity of life, the very idea that it seeks to enforce.
• The death penalty is not racially neutral.  More black and brown men are executed than their proportion to the population. We need to rid the legal system of all vestiges of racism, and if we cannot, we should not execute people.
• The death penalty is not “wealth neutral.” More poor people are executed than their proportion to the population.  The wealth of defendants plays a role in whether they will be convicted and whether they will face the death penalty.   If the death penalty cannot be administered fairly it should not be used. This is another example of the discriminatory nature of the death penalty.
• When used for non-homicide crimes, capital punishment is immoral because it is disproportionate to the harm done.
• The appeals process for death sentences is protracted, those condemned to death are often forced to endure long periods of uncertainty about their fate.
• People change over the course of their lives and many condemned criminals can become good human beings over the passage of time. For example, the judgment centers of the brains of men don’t fully mature until the age of about 26.

2. Walter McMillian was eventually freed and exonerated. Does this show that the justice system worked in his case?

A wrongful conviction is a failure of the criminal justice system. Walter McMillian was on death Row for six years; he lost almost a tenth of his life. That’s not an example of a justice system a system that works.

3. What do you take away from this story?

There is no one correct response to this question.

Questions Focusing on Race Relations Generally

4. Were the cross burnings and bombings by the Ku Klux Klan and the brutality of the people who lynched black men terrorist acts? Justify your answer.

Suggested Response: 

TWM submits that these perpetrators are properly classified as terrorists.  Cross burnings and bombings are criminal acts that were used to intimidate and terrorize African Americans in service of the political or social objectives of the perpetrators. The goal of preserving “the Southern heritage” is insufficient to justify these acts.  To the extent that the Southern way of life depended on racism, discrimination, and the economic subjugation of black Americans, the “Southern heritage” was contrary to basic American ideals and not worth saving.  Justifications of protecting racial purity or preserving white domination are likewise unethical.  The Oxford Dictionary defines the word “terrorist” to mean “a person who uses unlawful violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims.” In light of that definition, the KKK and the people who lynched black men were, indeed, terrorists.  [Note to teachers:  One of our favorite films on the KKK is Spike Lee’s hilarious BlackkKlansman .]

5. Do you agree that monuments to Confederate generals or Confederate officeholders should be taken down and replaced with memorials to the black and brown men and women who were lynched or deprived of their rights?”

[Note: Teachers may want to tell the class that the Federal government maintains a wonderful park at the site of the battle of Gettysburg, one of the great victories of the Union Army over Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia.  The memorials at the park include a beautiful equestrian statue of Robert E. Lee.  Back in the 1800s and early 1900s, the federal government allowed states and people from the South to erect are more than 20 statues to Confederates in the park. The goal of these statues was to allow the country to unite after the bitter divisions of a civil war that wreaked havoc on many parts of the South.  Remember Sherman’s march to the sea.  The important point is that these statues are in a historical park.]

The essential purpose of the Confederacy was to preserve slavery and statues to Confederation generals and office-holders were celebrations of that  oppression.  They were reminders that the white power structure in the South honored and continued that oppression.  As Virginia Governor Ralph Northam stated upon ordering the removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee from in front of the Virginia State House, “. . . it was wrong then, and it is wrong now.”   TWM suggests that there may be parts of Southern heritage that are beneficial, but reverence for the Confederacy and the rebellion against the U.S. government, which in its essence was to protect slavery, is wrong.   The doctrine of white supremacy was designed to justify slavery, and after the Civil War, the continued economic oppression of blacks.  Monuments to Confederate heroes are wrong as a matter of fact and divisive. It is contrary to the basic American belief that people should be judged on their merits and not on the color of their skin,  their country of origin, their religion, or their sexual orientation.

6.   Mr. Stevenson has a project of establishing museums and putting up memorials to victims of lynchings and other racist acts.  Is this a good idea?

Suggested Response:  

TWM’s position is that:  The museums and memorials to the victims of racist terrorism does two things:  1) it honors black Americans and victims of racism; 2) it reminds all Americans that, as a society, the country has committed grave errors in the past and that we must be on our guard not commit grave errors again; and 3) it reminds the racists that may still be among us that their views are in the minority and discouraged.

7. Should Walter have forgiven the law enforcement officials who wrongfully convicted and imprisoned him?

Often, forgiveness benefits the forgiver more than the forgiven. Carrying around a tremendous burden of anger or hate is bad for anyone. People can still forgive and take steps to make sure the offender is not in a position to repeat his offenses.  Nor should forgiveness stop the fight against injustice.  If the offender is likely to hurt someone else our obligations to the next victim requires taking steps to prevent that. Forgiveness is a mental state of withdrawing condemnation and anger.  As Bryan Stevenson stated, we are all more than the worst thing we’ve ever done.

8. Why does Walter McMillian put his hands on the top of the steering wheel of his truck when the sheriff stops him?

Walter puts his hands on the steering wheel so that the sheriff will be able to see his hands and not fear that Walter is reaching for a gun.  This is a good practice for anyoe stopped by the police, white or black.  Traffic stops are known to be particularly dangerous for police officers.

Role Model for a Fully Actualized Human Being – Male or Female

1. Do you think that Bryan Stevenson is a role model for young people male and female?

The argument for this proposition is that Mr. Stevenson, with his degree from Harvard Law School, could have made a lot of money as an attorney working in a big law firm. He chose instead to make much less money to seek justice for people who were wrongfully convicted or whose sentences were unjustly harsh.  Finding success in his legal career, Mr. Stevenson did not stop there. His newest project is to build museums and memorials to victims of racism to contribute to what he believes is a necessary truth and reconciliation process.  Our society is better off for Mr. Stevenson and the way that he has has lived his life.

MORAL-ETHICAL EMPHASIS (CHARACTER COUNTS)

1.  What happens to a society that does not embrace the concept of fairness?

Suggested Response:  Fairness means protection and support for those who obey the rules and just consequences for those who break the rules. Societies without fairness breed a culture of impugnity in which the strong oppress the weak, there are great disparities between rich and poor, and the well-connected take advantage of the less-well-connected, etc.   In societies with a culture of impugnity, the social order breaks down. 

ASSIGNMENTS, PROJECTS & ACTIVITIES

The discussion questions can be modified and used as essay prompts. Additional essay prompts are:

1. Research and write a short biography of Bryan Stevenson.  Use at least four independent and substantive sources.

2.Research the different arguments pro and con about whether the U.S. should retain capital punishment.  State and justify your conclusion.

3. Watch minutes 5 – 43 of Just Mercy: Race and the Criminal Justice System with Bryan Stevenson , Stanford University, June 27, 2017 , summarize the problems caused by over-incarceration in the U.S. and then describe and evaluate solutions to this problem.

4.  Mr. Stevenson has said,

We haven’t done in this country what other countries have done which is try to engage in a reckoning, in a truth and reconciliation process. In South Africa outside of their constitutional court there are “symblems and embols” designed to make sure that no one forgets the injustice of apartheid. But in this country we haven’t talked about slavery. We haven’t talked about the native genocide. We don’t talk about lynching. We haven’t created the kind of memorialization symbols that are designed to make sure that we are truthful and honest about this history. You start talking about race and people get nervous. And that has to change and that is why I am hoping that we will have an era of truth and justice in this country. And we shouldn’t fear it because I just think there is something better waiting for us in America. [Bryan Stevenson on The Ellen Degeneres Show , June 8, 2020.]

Research the role of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa.  What type of truth and reconciliation process do you think might work in the U.S.?

5 .  Many scholars believe that Germany has confronted the evil of the Holocaust by admitting its wrongdoing, teaching its children about it, establishing memorials to the victims of the Nazis, and paying reparations. They contrast it to modern-day Japan which has had trouble admitting the atrocities committed by the Empire of Japan in the 1930s and 1940s.  Write an essay on the lessons Americans can learn from the experiences of Germany and Japan in dealing with the history of its treatment of African Americans.

6.  How do you think that our society should respond to the centuries of black slavery and the ninety years of “Jim Crow” oppression and economic deprivation suffered by African Americans?  Should we just try to end racist and discriminatory practices right now and go on from here? Should there be some type of financial compensation such as outright payment or free tuition at any university or trade school? Should there be increased social services available to African American families? What about the problem of poor whites who have suffered from social, cultural, and educational deprivation for generations?  Research some of the solutions suggested by others, evaluate them, and come up with your own solution.

CCSS ANCHOR STANDARDS

Multimedia:

Anchor Standard #7 for Reading (for both ELA classes and for History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Classes). (The three Anchor Standards read: “Integrate and evaluate content presented in diverse media, including visually and quantitatively as well as in words.”)  CCSS  pp. 35 & 60. See also Anchor Standard # 2 for ELA Speaking and Listening,  CCSS  pg. 48.

Anchor Standards #s 1, 2, 7, and 8 for Reading and related standards (for both ELA classes and for History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Classes). CCSS  pp. 35 & 60.

Anchor Standards #s 1 – 5 and 7- 10 for Writing and related standards (for both ELA classes and for History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Classes).  CCSS  pp. 41 & 63.

Speaking and Listening:

Anchor Standards #s 1 – 3 (for ELA classes).  CCSS  pg. 48.

Not all assignments reach all Anchor Standards. Teachers are encouraged to review the specific standards to make sure that over the term all standards are met.

BRIDGES TO READING

For high school level readers, the last five chapters of Mr. Stevenson’s book, Just Mercy are an excellent supplement to the film. The first eleven chapters deal primarily with the Walter McMillian case and the movie hews closely to what is described in the book. Chapters 12 – 16 discuss some of Mr. Stevenson’s other legal work and what happened to Mr. McMillian after he was released from death row. (The book, Just Mercy was a New York Times bestseller and one of Time magazine’s 10 Best Books of Non-Fiction in 2014.)

In addition, Pete Early’s book, Circumstantial Evidence is a great description of petty criminal life in Southwestern Alabama and the prosecution, conviction, and ultimate exoneration of Walter McMillian

LINKS TO THE INTERNET

• The False Arrest of Walter McMillian Interview with Bryan Stevenson August 5, 2016 ;
• True Justice: Bryan Stevenson’s Fight For Equality (HBO, 2019) pool incident through minute 5 – set up to talk about race
• Remarks of Governor Ralph Northam of Virginia on his Announcement of the Removal of the statue of Robert E. Lee – June 4, 2020
• Arguments for and Against Capital Punishment: Encyclopedia Britannica Accessed 6/9/20
• Just Mercy: Race and the Criminal Justice System with Bryan Stevenson, Stanford University , June 27, 2017
• Bryan Stevenson on the Frustration Behind the George Floyd Protests By Isaac Chotiner New Yorker Magazine, June 1, 2020
• Ne w Estimate Raises Civil War Death Toll   by Guy Gugliotta NY Times, April 2, 2012
• Black Soldiers in the U.S. Military During the Civil War, National Archives, Education Resources, accessed June 24, 2020

BIBLIOGRAPHY

The internet pages in the Links to the Internet Section  and

• Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson
• Circumstantial Evidence by Pete Earley.

This Guide was written by James A. Frieden and published on Jun 26, 2020.

LEARNING GUIDE MENU:

Movie worksheets:.

The Character of Bryan Stevenson in Just Mercy — “I’m in law school cause I just want to help people.  I just haven’t figured out the best way to do that yet. Honestly, this internship has been the best experience so far.”

Watch a 3-minute clip from his appearance on the Ellen Degeneres Show.

RANDALL KENNEDY, Professor, Harvard Law School on the two alternative traditions relating to racism in America:

“I say that the best way to address this issue is to address it forthrightly, and straightforwardly, and embrace the complicated history and the complicated presence of America. On the one hand, that’s right, slavery, and segregation, and racism, and white supremacy is deeply entrenched in America. At the same time, there has been a tremendous alternative tradition, a tradition against slavery, a tradition against segregation, a tradition against racism.

I mean, after all in the past 25 years, the United States of America has seen an African-American presence. As we speak, there is an African-American vice president. As we speak, there’s an African- American who is in charge of the Department of Defense. So we have a complicated situation. And I think the best way of addressing our race question is to just be straightforward, and be clear, and embrace the tensions, the contradictions, the complexities of race in American life. I think we need actually a new vocabulary.

So many of the terms we use, we use these terms over and over, starting with racism, structural racism, critical race theory. These words actually have been weaponized. They are vehicles for propaganda. I think we would be better off if we were more concrete, we talked about real problems, and we actually used a language that got us away from these overused terms that actually don’t mean that much.   From Fahreed Zakaria, Global Public Square, CNN, December 26, 2021

Give your students new perspectives on race relations, on the history of the American Revolution, and on the contribution of the Founding Fathers to the cause of representative democracy. Check out TWM’s Guide: TWO CONTRASTING TRADITIONS RELATING TO RACISM IN AMERICA and a Tragic Irony of the American Revolution: the Sacrifice of Freedom for the African-American Slaves on the Altar of Representative Democracy.

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• Cast & crew
• User reviews

World-renowned civil rights defense attorney Bryan Stevenson works to free a wrongly condemned death row prisoner. World-renowned civil rights defense attorney Bryan Stevenson works to free a wrongly condemned death row prisoner. World-renowned civil rights defense attorney Bryan Stevenson works to free a wrongly condemned death row prisoner.

• Destin Daniel Cretton
• Andrew Lanham
• Bryan Stevenson
• Michael B. Jordan
• Brie Larson
• 489 User reviews
• 199 Critic reviews
• 68 Metascore
• 9 wins & 19 nominations

• Walter McMillian

• Charlie the Tree Expert

• Sheriff Tate

• Henry Davis

• Prison Guard

• Christy Stevenson
• Howard Stevenson, Jr.

• Howard Stevenson, Sr.

• Alice Stevenson

• Kris Ansley

• Bill Freeman, Office Manager

• Doug Ansley

• Jeremy Doss

• Herbert Richardson
• Prison Interviewee
• All cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

How Real Life Inspired and Informed 'Just Mercy'

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• Trivia On January 6, 2020, Microsoft Corporation rented out 32 AMC Cinemas across the US and offered paid time off and movie tickets to all US employees to attend a private screening of Just Mercy.
• Goofs One cuff comes off when John McMillian is taken away in handcuffs by two policemen in court.

Bryan Stevenson : I came out of law school with grand ideas in my mind about how to change the world. But Mr. McMillian made me realize we can't change the world with only ideas in our minds. We need conviction in our hearts. this man taught me how to stay hopeful, because I now know that hopelessness is the enemy of justice. Hope allows us to push for word, even when the truth is distorted by the people in power. It allows us to stand when they tell us to sit down, and to speak when they say be quiet.

• Connections Featured in CTV News at Six Toronto: Episode dated 6 September 2019 (2019)
• Soundtracks Ode to Billie Joe Written by Bobbie Gentry Performed by Martha & The Vandellas (as Martha Reeves & The Vandellas) Courtesy of Motown Records Under license from with Universal Music Enterprises

User reviews 489

• Jan 11, 2020

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• January 10, 2020 (United States)
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• Conyers, Georgia, USA (Road Block)
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• Fifth Season
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• $25,000,000 (estimated)
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• Dec 29, 2019
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We are republishing this piece on the homepage in allegiance with a critical American movement that upholds Black voices. For a growing resource list with information on where you can donate, connect with activists, learn more about the protests, and find anti-racism reading,  click here . "Just Mercy" is currently streaming for free on Amazon, Google Play, and YouTube. #BlackLivesMatter.

“Just Mercy” has the misfortune of hitting theaters at the same time as “ Clemency ,” a more daring and better film set on a prison’s Death Row. Though the lead characters differ in intent— Michael B. Jordan ’s activist Bryan Stevenson is trying to get prisoners off the row while Alfre Woodard ’s warden Bernadine Williams oversees their executions—the two actors each have moments of stillness where they seem to physically vibrate from the internal trauma they’re suppressing. This is built into Woodard’s character intrinsically, but for Jordan, it feels more like an actor doing his best to rise above the paper-thin characterization he has been given. Stevenson is so noble and flawless that he’s a credible bore unless you focus on Jordan’s physicality. You look into his eyes and see him trying to play something the film’s cautious tone won’t allow: a sense of Black rage.

Since the days of '50s-era message pictures, the majority of films about African-American suffering have always been calibrated the way “Just Mercy” is, with an eye to not offending White viewers with anything remotely resembling Black anger. We can be beaten, raped, enslaved, shot for no reason by police, victimized by a justice system rigged to disfavor us or any other number of real-world things that can befall us, yet God help us if a character is pissed off about this. Instead, we get to be noble, to hold on to His unchanging hand while that tireless Black lady goes “hmmm-HMMMMM!” on the soundtrack to symbolize our suffering. There’s a lot of “hmmm-HMMMMM”-ing in this movie, so much so that I had to resist laughing. These clichés are overused to the point of madness. Between this, the equally lackluster “ Harriet ” and the abysmal “ The Best of Enemies ,” that poor woman’s lips must be damn tired from all that humming.

Movies like “Just Mercy” spoon-feed everything to the viewer in easily digestible chunks that assume you know nothing, or worse, don’t know any better. They believe that, to win the hearts and minds of racists, you can’t depict any complexity lest you ruin the “teachable moment” the film is supposed to be presenting. It’s unfortunate that these teachable moments are so often delivered in the exact same, tired manner, as if they were meant for people who are perpetually having to repeat the same grade. Making matters worse, the White perpetrators of injustice are so often one-note villains that they allow for plausible deniability by the viewer: “I can’t be racist because I’m nowhere near as bad as THAT guy!” Granted, this is a period piece true story and the film can’t bend its real-life people too deeply into dramatic license, but director and co-writer Destin Daniel Cretton applies a way-too-familiar formula to their personalities.

Despite my complaints, I have some admiration for how much “Just Mercy” is willing to interrogate. It’s a lot, and I feel some commendation is in order for bringing these issues up at all. Adapting Stevenson’s memoir, Cretton and his co-writer Andrew Lanham touch upon activists for Death Row prisoners, the value of White lives vs. Black lives, veterans whose PTSD is left unchecked, corrupt law officials, justice system imbalances and, in a subplot anchored by Tim Blake Nelson , the idea that poor people are victimized by law enforcement regardless of what color the impoverished person is.

I remember watching the “60 Minutes” profile re-created here, where Stevenson takes the case of Walter McMillian ( Jamie Foxx ) to the public. McMillian was on Death Row for a crime he swore he didn’t commit, the death of a young White woman. Despite having 17 witnesses vouching for his whereabouts at the time of the murder, an Alabama jury of 11 White men and one Black man convicted McMillian based on the testimony of an ex-con named Ralph Meyers (Nelson). Stevenson took his case to the CBS airwaves after his successful attempt to get McMillian’s case reopened ended with a judge named after Robert E. Lee discarding Myers’ admission that he’d lied under oath in the first trial. All of this is completely believable in reality, but here, both the corrupt Sheriff Tate ( Michael Harding ) and the district attorney are depicted as cartoon villains acting alone rather than in service to a far more racist and corrupt system. You have to wait until midway through the closing credits to discover that Tate was re-elected multiple times after his role in McMillian’s railroading was exposed.

I should mention that this case took place in Monroeville, Alabama, also known as the home of “ To Kill a Mockingbird ” author Harper Lee. I bring up Lee because her book, and its subsequent cinematic adaptation, are ground zero for all the aggravating clichés I mentioned above. So it’s no coincidence that “Just Mercy” plugs Michael B. Jordan into the Atticus Finch role. Like Gregory Peck in that immortal performance, Jordan has presence, idealism and righteousness on his side. What’s missing is the commanding sense of authority Peck brought to the part, which isn’t Jordan’s fault at all. Stevenson is a somewhat naïve Yankee from Delaware trying to navigate the ways of the Deep South; Finch was an Alabama native with a paternal glow.

As Stevenson’s co-worker Eva, Brie Larson reteams with her “ Short Term 12 ” director but is given little to do other than to be threatened once she re-opens McMillian’s case. Still, she milks a lot of character out of the simple act of smoking a cigarette. Foxx’s McMillian is written in a similarly flat manner, but he shines in his few scenes with fellow Death Row inmate Herbert Richardson ( Rob Morgan ). Richardson’s arc is the one truly successful element of “Just Mercy,” and Morgan’s excellent, heartbreaking performance is being unfairly overshadowed by Foxx’s this awards season. A Vietnam vet with severe PTSD, Richardson caused the death of a young girl when a bomb he planted on her porch exploded. Unlike McMillian, Richardson is guilty of the crime and believes he belongs on Death Row. He was unable to get help for his mental issues before he committed his crime, and the prosecutor withheld this information during the trial.

Morgan shades his small part with such beautiful, subtle gestures that he becomes the only character who feels fleshed out, complex and real. You feel not only his sense of guilt but the demons that infected his brain during combat. His last, horrific scene is so well acted that it still haunts me; it’s the only time the viewer is forced to be uncomfortably conflicted, to think about the complicated nature of injustice. I wish the rest of “Just Mercy” had that level of jarring complexity instead of relying on easy tropes to deliver its message.

"Just Mercy" is currently streaming for free on Amazon, Google Play, and YouTube.

Odie Henderson

Odie "Odienator" Henderson has spent over 33 years working in Information Technology. He runs the blogs Big Media Vandalism and Tales of Odienary Madness. Read his answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire  here .

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Just Mercy (2019)

Rated PG-13 for thematic content including some racial epithets.

136 minutes

Michael B. Jordan as Bryan Stevenson

Jamie Foxx as Walter McMillian

Brie Larson as Eva Ansley

O'Shea Jackson Jr. as Anthony Ray Hinton

Rafe Spall as Tommy Champan

Rob Morgan as Herbert Richardson

Tim Blake Nelson as Ralph Myers

Karan Kendrick as Minnie McMillian

• Destin Daniel Cretton

Writer (based on the book by)

• Bryan Stevenson
• Andrew Lanham

Cinematographer

• Brett Pawlak
• Nat Sanders
• Joel P. West

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Home » Movies » Movie Reviews

Just Mercy Review: A Moving Film of Integrity And Injustice

Very early on in Just Mercy , you are doused in two engrossing and powerful scenes. The first is of our hero of this fact-based story, a lawyer named Bryan Stevenson (Michael B. Jordan), driving into a death row max facility in Montgomery, Alabama and seeing a dozen or so prisoners, all African-American, working in a field with guards surrounding them as they perform their manual labor. The other is a wholly demeaning visual of a prison guard making this young man strip naked as the day he was born before entering the facility to see his clients that has an uncommon power as the result of someone else’s pure ignorance.

Just Mercy chronicles the beginning of real-life and civil rights legend Bryan Stevenson’s   career while starting at the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) in Montgomery, Alabama after his graduation from Harvard Law. In his first case, and with the help of a local advocate Eva Ansley (Brie Larson), they take on the conviction of Walter McMillian (Jamie Foxx) for the murder of 18-year-old Ronda Morrison. The case wasn’t a solid one —   in fact, there were more cracks in the case than a floor in a condemned home. With a lion’s share of evidence proving his innocence, he was sentenced to life in prison without parole, put on death row, and no one was willing to take on the politics of overturning an infamous murder; until, of course, Stevenson arrives in town defending about a half-dozen men facing capital punishment charges.

Just Mercy was directed by the man responsible for Short Term 12 , Destin Daniel Cretton, and co-wrote this adaptation with scribe Andrew Lanham ( The Kid ); their most recent collaboration was the ill-reviewed Larson vehicle, The Glass Castle . Their new film is an improvement in almost every way, basing their screenplay on Stevenson’s memoir. It’s raw, fairly straightforward without a big musical score to enhance any significant turns in the narrative. It smartly relies on the natural power and suspense of the drama that’s legally based on a true story of a wrongful conviction.

While I enjoyed its   grounded approach, I would have liked a tighter script that dealt with more clarification on why such evidence was not presented and ignored. For instance, why a tape of the main witness swearing MacMillian didn’t do it and only changed it when he was threatened with a death row charge; though, it’s obvious if you connect the dots between politics, racism, and legalized laws that practically scream Jim Crow. A more nuanced approach addressing each legal strategy that was denied would have lent more suspense and a deeper connection with the fight to set McMillian free. The script also gives way to a small amount of melodrama that wasn’t there previously by film’s end.

You don’t pay theatre ticket prices to watch a courtroom   film to quibble over details , but for the sheer nature of its storyline and the showpiece   it offers for its talented cast. This might be Jamie Foxx’s best role in years, and he commands your attention to the camera in the limited screen time he has in every frame. It’s a nice reminder of what a talented actor he has been after his string of big-budget flops.

The casting of Brie Larson brought an interesting quandary for me as here is a person who reportedly had a larger hand in the development of EJI and the cases that were displayed in the film. On   the one hand, her association with the director and star power is welcomed in the film, and the studio could have demanded an expanded role that would have made the film’s script disjointed or uneven. Although, und erwriting her role in the story is disingenuous and undervalues a woman’s role in a real case, which   is a shamefully common prac tice in most Hollywood scripts.

Michael B. Jordan does what the role asks of him; he’s slightly naive, young, idealistic, polite, yet grounded, and stoic. You can see parallels to the strength he brings that’s similar to the film’s setting of To Kill A Mockingb ird and the protagonist Atticus Finch. He shines as a real-life hero of great poise and conviction. It’s very hard to portray integrity without succumbing to a grand, divine plea before the court; I think he would have made Harper Lee proud of his interpretation of a real-life Finch, and I’m sure Stevenson does as well.

Just Mercy is well worth your time and money based on its raw power and stirring performances from its top-notch cast that doesn’t even address the standout supporting turns from Tim Blake Nelson, Oshea Jackson Jr, and a deeply felt Rob Morgan ( Mudbound ) as a death row inmate Herbert Richardson. Ultimately, it’s a moving film about integrity, injustice, and the indictment of the criminal justice system against the nation’s poor and its minorities.

Article by Marc Miller

Marc Miller (also known as M.N. Miller) joined Ready Steady Cut in April 2018 as a Film and TV Critic, publishing over 1,600 articles on the website. Since a young age, Marc dreamed of becoming a legitimate critic and having that famous “Rotten Tomato” approved status – in 2023, he achieved that status.

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Just Mercy is a powerful argument against the death penalty

The film — based on Bryan Stevenson’s book and starring Michael B. Jordan and Jamie Foxx — is flawed but vital.

by Alissa Wilkinson

The American practice of capital punishment is inextricably linked to much of what’s wrong with our justice system — its focus on punitive rather than restorative measures; its indisputable bias against the poor, mentally ill, and marginalized; its captivity to racial bias . These issues aren’t up for much debate.

But despite support for abolishing or at least reforming the death penalty from both progressives and a healthy number of pro-life conservatives , it’s also not something most Americans have to think about a lot. Few people find their own lives touched by the death penalty, and it’s in the best interests of its supporters not to say much about the details in public.

Since 1976, for every nine Americans executed by the state, one is exonerated and released from death row — a margin of error that should terrify us all. (And yet, after years of decline, American support for the death penalty ticked up in 2018.)

That’s precisely what Just Mercy , a true story that will set your sense of injustice ablaze, aims to change.

Just Mercy is a story of idealism that becomes tempered by reality and sharpened by injustice

Based on Bryan Stevenson ’s bestselling 2014 memoir of the same name, Just Mercy tells the story of Stevenson’s early career as an attorney working to reverse wrongful convictions in Alabama and details the founding of his organization, the Equal Justice Initiative . The film focuses on the case of Walter “Johnny D” McMillian, a poor black man who was arrested in 1987 for the murder of an 18-year-old white girl and convicted based on testimony that later turned out to be fabricated. After years of legal battles, McMillian’s story became a national case, and his convictions were at last reversed in 1993.

It is a plainly infuriating story, and Just Mercy doesn’t try to disguise its most angering aspects: the racism and bias against the poor that led to McMillian’s conviction; the twisting of the pursuit of justice into the pursuit of reputation; the ways the powerful protect their own.

And the film is smartly designed to deliver its message into as many hearts as possible. Directed and co-written by Destin Daniel Cretton ( Short Term 12 , The Glass Castle , and Marvel’s upcoming Eternals ), Just Mercy stars a bevy of actors who get audiences in the door, led by Michael B. Jordan, Jamie Foxx, and Brie Larson. Foxx’s performance, in particular, seems like a solid bet for an Oscar nod.

Jordan plays Stevenson, a recent Harvard Law graduate raised in Delaware who feels compelled, after completing an internship in Alabama during law school, to take the state’s bar and move south to work with death row inmates. His mother is angry at him — she’s afraid of what will happen to a black man in the deep south who dares to take on that task — but he’s full of ideals and undeterred. (He’s also driven by his faith, something the film conveys mostly through visual cues, such as when he prays with inmates, but was a big part of Stevenson’s real-life motivation .)

Stevenson arrives in Monroeville, Alabama — the county where Harper Lee wrote To Kill a Mockingbird , many residents, including the white district attorney, proudly inform him. People keep telling him to go to “the Mockingbird museum”; it’s “one of the most significant civil rights landmarks in the south,” the DA says.

But what Stevenson finds in Monroeville is a death row full of inmates who seem to have ended up there for reasons that are less than just. Even Herbert Richardson (Rob Morgan) — who confesses immediately to Stevenson that he did what he’s been convicted of doing — is obviously mentally ill, suffering from PTSD following a harrowing tour of duty in Vietnam.

In reviewing his new case load along with local advocate Eva Ansley (Larson), Stevenson realizes that the conviction of one inmate in particular, McMillian (Foxx), is almost certainly wrong. The further he digs into the case, the more he realizes that it’s linked to some of Monroeville’s ugliest attitudes and secrets. The entire case against McMillian is based on testimony from a convicted murderer (Tim Blake Nelson) who was offered a plea deal in exchange for fingering McMillian.

Stevenson and Ansley know the whole thing stinks. But their quest to reverse McMillian and others’ convictions fly right in the face of the powerful, and Stevenson’s experiences with McMillian begin to change the shape of his own idealism.

Just Mercy has some key storytelling flaws, but is still worth watching

Just Mercy ’s greatest strength as a film is its true story, and Cretton chooses to keep the focus on the plot. The movie is structured like a straight-ahead procedural, with all the usual beats. It’s more workmanlike than imaginatively scripted or shot, which is a little disappointing — there was certainly an opportunity to set the film apart from other procedural films or movies about death row, but this one sticks to familiar vocabulary.

And in following that template, it also falls into a distressing rut. McMillian, after all, was innocent. And it’s easy to get indignant on behalf of the wrongfully convicted.

But by dint of McMillian’s story being the easiest sell to the audience, someone like Richardson — who did in fact commit the crime — ends up as a side story, albeit one that’s powerfully told and embodied by Morgan. As the Equal Justice Initiative’s website argues , the death penalty is rooted in the practice of lynching, and there are myriad arguments, both practical and philosophical, for why people who are not innocent still ought not to be executed by the state.

Still, the film's point comes across by the end: Not only is capital punishment barbaric, but the system that orchestrates it is grossly flawed. Several time, the film illustrates how the threat of the electric chair is used to coerce and intimidate people who have not even been convicted (McMillian was put on death row a year before his trial). Fear, as a tool wielded by those who enforce and enact the law, should have no place in the pursuit of justice and the protection of innocence. But it does, all the same.

And that should matter to everyone who cares about a just society. Not every American will know someone personally touched by the death penalty. But shifting how we think about capital punishment will shift the way we think about what the justice system is for. (We are, after all, governed by a president who brashly, publicly called for the execution of five teenagers in 1989 , and refuses to recant even after their exoneration, saying their coerced testimonies should still be taken as fact — a rhetorical move that will seem familiar after you see Just Mercy .)

In spite of its shortcomings, Just Mercy is still the sort of film that’s worth watching and absorbing and discussing, because the story it tells has not stopped being relevant in the decades since Stevenson and McMillian met. America’s history of injustice has not gotten less dark in recent years. And we cannot willfully blind ourselves when our brothers’ and sisters’ blood continues to cry out from the ground .

Just Mercy premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September. It opens in theaters on Christmas Day.

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Just Mercy is a film centered around themes of empathy, equity, hope, and resilience. It is a story that uplifts marginalized voices who are typically unheard, unacknowledged, or deemed undeserving of mercy in the criminal justice system. The story follows Harvard Law School graduate Bryan Stevenson’s move to Alabama where he recognizes an urgent need to provide free legal assistance to minorities who have been unfairly sentenced.

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Our curriculum guide for  Just Mercy , and the film itself, pairs well with  Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption , Bryan Stevenson’s memoir which inspired the film. Additionally, some educators pair this film and our curriculum guide or the Student Learning Guide with To Kill A Mockingbird . These resources can also be used with clips from the film or even film references rather than showing the entire film.

Film runtime: 2 hours, 16 minutes.

Film rating: PG-13. Common Sense Media rates this film as appropriate as ages 13+ .

Video Librarian also has a review available for this film .

Just Mercy Curriculum Guide & Student Learning Guide

Lesson 1: The “Nadir of Black History” (U.S. History) Lesson 2: The Case of Walter McMillian (Film Literacy, English Language Arts) Lesson 3:  A Long Path to Justice (U.S. History, U.S. Government) Lesson 4:  Wrongful Convictions in Our Justice System (U.S. Government, Civics)

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Related resources.

• “ Bringing Books and Films Together to Inspire and Engage Students ” from Video Librarian.
• “Teaching Historical and Current Events” from Video Librarian.
• Share My Lesson has an On-Demand webinar for this resource available.
• Teaching with Primary Sources Through Film .

Sustainable Development Goals

This curriculum guide connects to the following United Nations SDGs. Learn more about teaching with SDGs: https://en.unesco.org/themes/education/sdgs/material .

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Just Mercy (Bryan Stevenson) Lesson Plans for Teachers

Teaching Just Mercy (Bryan Stevenson)

The Just Mercy (Bryan Stevenson) lesson plan contains a variety of teaching materials that cater to all learning styles. Inside you'll find 30 Daily Lessons, 20 Fun Activities, 180 Multiple Choice Questions, 60 Short Essay Questions, 20 Essay Questions, Quizzes/Homework Assignments, Tests, and more. The lessons and activities will help students gain an intimate understanding of the text, while the tests and quizzes will help you evaluate how well the students have grasped the material. View a free sample

Target Grade: 7th-12th (Middle School and High School)

Length of Lesson Plan: Approximately 115 pages. Page count is estimated at 300 words per page. Length will vary depending on format viewed.

Browse The Just Mercy (Bryan Stevenson) Lesson Plan:

Full Lesson Plan Overview

Completely customizable.

The Just Mercy (Bryan Stevenson) lesson plan is downloadable in PDF and Word. The Word file is viewable with any PC or Mac and can be further adjusted if you want to mix questions around and/or add your own headers for things like "Name," "Period," and "Date." The Word file offers unlimited customizing options so that you can teach in the most efficient manner possible. Once you download the file, it is yours to keep and print for your classroom. View a FREE sample

Lesson Plan Calendars

The Lesson Plan Calendars provide daily suggestions about what to teach. They include detailed descriptions of when to assign reading, homework, in-class work, fun activities, quizzes, tests and more. Use the entire Just Mercy (Bryan Stevenson) calendar, or supplement it with your own curriculum ideas. Calendars cover one, two, four, and eight week units. Determine how long your Just Mercy (Bryan Stevenson) unit will be, then use one of the calendars provided to plan out your entire lesson.

Chapter Abstracts

Chapter abstracts are short descriptions of events that occur in each chapter of Just Mercy (Bryan Stevenson) . They highlight major plot events and detail the important relationships and characteristics of important characters. The Chapter Abstracts can be used to review what the students have read, or to prepare the students for what they will read. Hand the abstracts out in class as a study guide, or use them as a "key" for a class discussion. They are relatively brief, but can serve to be an excellent refresher of Just Mercy (Bryan Stevenson) for either a student or teacher.

Character and Object Descriptions

Character and Object Descriptions provide descriptions of the significant characters as well as objects and places in Just Mercy (Bryan Stevenson) . These can be printed out and used as an individual study guide for students, a "key" for leading a class discussion, a summary review prior to exams, or a refresher for an educator. The character and object descriptions are also used in some of the quizzes and tests in this lesson plan. The longest descriptions run about 200 words. They become shorter as the importance of the character or object declines.

Daily Lessons

This section of the lesson plan contains 30 Daily Lessons. Daily Lessons each have a specific objective and offer at least three (often more) ways to teach that objective. Lessons include classroom discussions, group and partner activities, in-class handouts, individual writing assignments, at least one homework assignment, class participation exercises and other ways to teach students about Just Mercy (Bryan Stevenson) in a classroom setting. You can combine daily lessons or use the ideas within them to create your own unique curriculum. They vary greatly from day to day and offer an array of creative ideas that provide many options for an educator.

Fun Classroom Activities

Fun Classroom Activities differ from Daily Lessons because they make "fun" a priority. The 20 enjoyable, interactive classroom activities that are included will help students understand Just Mercy (Bryan Stevenson) in fun and entertaining ways. Fun Classroom Activities include group projects, games, critical thinking activities, brainstorming sessions, writing poems, drawing or sketching, and countless other creative exercises. Many of the activities encourage students to interact with each other, be creative and think "outside of the box," and ultimately grasp key concepts from the text by "doing" rather than simply studying. Fun activities are a great way to keep students interested and engaged while still providing a deeper understanding of Just Mercy (Bryan Stevenson) and its themes.

Essay Questions/Writing Assignments

These 20 Essay Questions/Writing Assignments can be used as essay questions on a test, or as stand-alone essay topics for a take-home or in-class writing assignment on Just Mercy (Bryan Stevenson) . Students should have a full understanding of the unit material in order to answer these questions. They often include multiple parts of the work and ask for a thorough analysis of the overall text. They nearly always require a substantial response. Essay responses are typically expected to be one (or more) page(s) and consist of multiple paragraphs, although it is possible to write answers more briefly. These essays are designed to challenge a student's understanding of the broad points in a work, interactions among the characters, and main points and themes of the text. But, they also cover many of the other issues specific to the work and to the world today.

Short Essay Questions

The 60 Short Essay Questions listed in this section require a one to two sentence answer. They ask students to demonstrate a deeper understanding of Just Mercy (Bryan Stevenson) by describing what they've read, rather than just recalling it. The short essay questions evaluate not only whether students have read the material, but also how well they understand and can apply it. They require more thought than multiple choice questions, but are shorter than the essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

The 180 Multiple Choice Questions in this lesson plan will test a student's recall and understanding of Just Mercy (Bryan Stevenson) . Use these questions for quizzes, homework assignments or tests. The questions are broken out into sections, so they focus on specific chapters within Just Mercy (Bryan Stevenson) . This allows you to test and review the book as you proceed through the unit. Typically, there are 5-15 questions per chapter, act or section.

Evaluation Forms

Use the Oral Reading Evaluation Form when students are reading aloud in class. Pass the forms out before you assign reading, so students will know what to expect. You can use the forms to provide general feedback on audibility, pronunciation, articulation, expression and rate of speech. You can use this form to grade students, or simply comment on their progress.

Use the Writing Evaluation Form when you're grading student essays. This will help you establish uniform criteria for grading essays even though students may be writing about different aspects of the material. By following this form you will be able to evaluate the thesis, organization, supporting arguments, paragraph transitions, grammar, spelling, punctuation, etc. of each student's essay.

Quizzes/Homework Assignments

The Quizzes/Homework Assignments are worksheets that can be used in a variety of ways. They pull questions from the multiple choice and short essay sections, the character and object descriptions, and the chapter abstracts to create worksheets that can be used for pop quizzes, in-class assignments and homework. Periodic homework assignments and quizzes are a great way to encourage students to stay on top of their assigned reading. They can also help you determine which concepts and ideas your class grasps and which they need more guidance on. By pulling from the different sections of the lesson plan, quizzes and homework assignments offer a comprehensive review of Just Mercy (Bryan Stevenson) in manageable increments that are less substantial than a full blown test.

Use the Test Summary page to determine which pre-made test is most relevant to your students' learning styles. This lesson plan provides both full unit tests and mid-unit tests. You can choose from several tests that include differing combinations of multiple choice questions, short answer questions, short essay questions, full essay questions, character and object matching, etc. Some of the tests are designed to be more difficult than others. Some have essay questions, while others are limited to short-response questions, like multiple choice, matching and short answer questions. If you don't find the combination of questions that best suits your class, you can also create your own test on Just Mercy (Bryan Stevenson) .

Create Your Own Quiz or Test

You have the option to Create Your Own Quiz or Test. If you want to integrate questions you've developed for your curriculum with the questions in this lesson plan, or you simply want to create a unique test or quiz from the questions this lesson plan offers, it's easy to do. Cut and paste the information from the Create Your Own Quiz or Test page into a Word document to get started. Scroll through the sections of the lesson plan that most interest you and cut and paste the exact questions you want to use into your new, personalized Just Mercy (Bryan Stevenson) lesson plan.

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Just Mercy Resources for Teaching

Curriculum resources.

• Themes of Just Mercy
• Related Films
• SCU Library Resources
• States of Incarceration- Resources Resources support discussions around histories and current issues in mass incarceration. Curricula includes a curated list of readings around a variety of themes in incarceration history.
• Teacher’s Guide to Just Mercy Chapter summaries and discussion questions produced by the publisher of Just Mercy from the Georgia State University first-year book program.
• Just Mercy Assignments Discussion and analysis in-class activities and assignments for teaching Just Mercy from Professor Maggie Hill.
• Just Mercy and Media Analysis Assignment Assignment to analyze media related to themes of Just Mercy.
• Just Mercy Book Review Analysis Part 1 Introductory class exercises using analysis of book reviews.
• Just Mercy Book Review Analysis Part 2 Follow-up class exercise using analysis of book reviews.
• Just Mercy Rhetorical Analysis Activity Introductory assignment for rhetorical analysis of Just Mercy.
• Analysis Essay of Just Mercy Analysis essay, including identifying a topic, rhetorical context, analysis, and making a claim.
• Lens Analysis: Music in Just Mercy Assignment and activities focused on the role of music in Just Mercy.
• Just Mercy Synthesis Essay Synthesis is a common practice of information literacy in many academic, professional, and social communities that involves comparing perspectives, highlighting similarities, differences, and connections, and presenting new ideas based on your interpretations of others’ ideas. For
• Just Mercy Introduction Discussion Discussion question for the introductory chapter of Just Mercy.
• Music in Just Mercy Activities and assignments centering the role of music in Just Mercy.
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• Last Updated: Nov 27, 2023 1:01 PM
• URL: https://libguides.scu.edu/teachingjustmercy

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Text Review Assignment: Just Mercy

Just Mercy definitely gives viewers a wakeup call  for change. The storyline, acting, and overall production makes for an extremely successful movie and really showcases systematic injustices and inequality within the law system, between races, and amongst differing socioeconomic statuses. I highly recommend you watch this movie!

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Movie Review: JUST MERCY

Worthy and solid if unoriginal fact-based legal drama.

JUST MERCY movie poster | ©2019 Warner Bros.

Rating: PG-13 Stars: Michael B. Jordan, Jamie Foxx, Brie Larson,  Tim Blake Nelson, Rob Morgan, O’Shea Jackson Jr., Rafe Spall Writers: Destin Daniel Cretton & Andrew Lanham, based on the book by Bryan Stevenson Director: Destin Daniel Cretton Distributor: Warner Bros. Release Date: December 25, 2019

  JUST MERCY opens in 1987 Monroeville, Alabama (where, all of the white locals continually point out, Harper Lee wrote TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD ). Walter McMillian (Jamie Foxx), known to all his friends as Johnny D, is a cheerful family man with his own pulping business. One night, he is pulled over and arrested for the crime of murder. Walter is black, the victim was a white teenage girl, and we are in a small town in the Deep South in the ‘80s. The system is rigged against Walter from the outset.

At the same time this is happening, Bryan Stevenson (Michael B. Jordan) is studying law at Harvard. Even before graduation, Bryan displays zeal for helping people who’ve received poor legal representation. When he gets his degree, Bryan moves to Alabama, over the objections of his mother. She has understandable fears about what can happen in Alabama to a black man and/or anyone trying to defend convicts, let alone someone who is both.

Bryan acquires a like-minded associate, Eva Ansley (Brie Larson), and together they set up the non-profit, government-funded Equal Justice Initiative. (Eva’s husband Doug, played by Dominic Bogart, is supportive.) Bryan takes on a number of cases, including Walter’s.

Walter’s case is, sadly, all too believable as a miscarriage of justice. The eyewitness testimony against Walter, provided by a white convict (Tim Blake Nelson), is borderline nonsensical. Dozens of people, none of them called to the stand, can testify that Walter was with them at a community event at the time of the murder. With these facts on his side, Brian is both optimistic and determined. However …

Director Destin Daniel Cretton and his co-screenwriter Andrew Lanham clearly have passion in their hearts and a lot on their minds. They are opposed to the death penalty both because innocent people can be executed, and because they feel that even the guilty should not be reduced to their very worst actions.

The case in JUST MERCY , featured in real life on 60 MINUTES , has such shocking actions on the part of law enforcement and the courts that it’s not hard to feel outrage. The more we learn, the more horrified and furious we are on behalf of both Walter, who has been targeted for reasons of racism, and Bryan, who is being thwarted at every turn perhaps because he’s black, and definitely because the people in charge don’t like being embarrassed.

The acting is top quality, with Jordan showing eloquent restraint and Foxx maintaining Walter’s human decency in horrible circumstances. Larson doesn’t get much to do, but does it well. Nelson is a standout as the shady perjurer, and Rob Morgan and O’Shea Jackson Jr. are memorable as two of Walter’s fellow convicts.

But in their eagerness to make sure we get the point that racism and prejudice against the poor in general can often taint legal cases, Cretton & Langham sometimes employ on-the-nose dialogue. The actors deliver their lines with sincerity, but sometimes it doesn’t sound quite right.

Also, some scenes seem to be there because the template calls for them, not because JUST MERCY needs them. The first meeting between Bryan and Walter is not promising. Walter feels that, because his previous lawyer bailed, Bryan won’t do anything, and even if he wants to, he can’t. Nobody has ever gotten off death row in Alabama.

While this last piece of information is relevant to the story, the rest of the scene plays as sort of movie-meet-cute. We know beyond a doubt (reasonable or otherwise) that Bryan is going to represent Walter; there wouldn’t be a movie otherwise. There’s no need for JUST MERCY to play coy on that score.

It’s possible to wholly support JUST MERCY ’s sentiments and still question some of its filmmaking tactics. Still, the fact-based story it tells (Stevenson, McMillian, Ansley and others are all real people) is intriguing. As a well-performed courtroom drama, it fills the holiday bill.

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Just Mercy Movie Guide 2020

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Just Mercy - List of Essay Samples And Topic Ideas

Just Mercy is a memoir by Bryan Stevenson detailing his experiences as a young lawyer fighting for the rights of marginalized individuals in the US justice system. Essays could explore the themes of justice, compassion, and systemic inequality as depicted in the memoir. Discussions could also extend to the broader implications of Stevenson’s work and the ongoing efforts to address injustices within the legal system. We have collected a large number of free essay examples about Just Mercy you can find at Papersowl. You can use our samples for inspiration to write your own essay, research paper, or just to explore a new topic for yourself.

Law and Society in “Just Mercy”

From talking about different types of cases involving corruption in the United States Criminal Justice system, the novel ""Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption"" by Bryan Stevenson is a great novel to read. This piece of literature takes place mostly during the time where blacks were discriminated heavily, and the court system was somewhat flawed against them. It talks about the author himself, on how he spends decades dedicating himself to help those who have been falsely accused […]

Just Mercy – Powerful Argument against the Death Penalty

Our character is measured by how we treat the accused, disfavored, the poor, and the condemned as well as the incarcerated. Bryan Stevenson is the executive director and founder of the Montgomery-based Equal Justice Initiative. He is a lawyer and spends most of his time in prisons, jails and on death row. He works on the criminal justice system and he noticed several problems affecting the system, racial injustice being one of them. An African-American man, Walter McMillan spent six […]

Measure for Measure Justice and Mercy

Shakespeare's Measure for Measure explores everything from the balance between justice and mercy, to lust and all of the unavoidable sins of human nature. Shakespeare's work mainly focuses on justice and mercy, two concepts that although seemingly universal, are presented in different manners in this work. In the Renaissance era, the time period in which this play takes place, many of the usual punishments that were accepted would be seen as cruel and harsh today. Shakespeare uses all of the […]

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“Just Mercy” is Bryan Stevenson’s Perspective on the American Criminal Justice System

Stevenson argues that the society should be aware rather than punishment. His personal stories share a representation of the criminal justice system. Stevenson is responsible for reducing the amount of wrongly accused victims. Throughout the story Just Mercy, the author, Bryan Stevenson, uses an optimistic tone. During cases, he would notice that things weren't going the way he expected. However, he still had hope in those situations. Bryan Stevenson uses real life experiences to bring awareness to incarceration. He uses […]

The Story of Walter McMillian in Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson

The story of Walter McMillian in Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson is the one that I found the most intriguing. Bryan, who was the attorney on Walter's case, was young and just starting his career. He first encountered Walter while he was on death row (20). He had spoken to other inmates on death row that day, but Walter's case is the one that stuck with him. He felt Walter's sincerity and heartache (21). Walter grew up in a rural […]

Winds of Change in America’s Criminal Justice System

The American justice system has always been accused of being unfavorable towards minorities, especially to the black population of our society. A positive change can be seen in recent years, however, according to Philip Smith, editor and chief correspondent of a media project called “Drug Reporter” that is endorsed by the Independent Media Institute. His article, “4 Reasons for a Surprising Change in Racial Incarceration Trendlines,” noted a recent trend of gradual decline in incarceration rate of the black population […]

Theme of Just Mercy

Justice is not about taking revenge; it is about equity. The purpose of this reflection is to present the thoughts and analysis of the Just Mercy book by Bryan Stevenson (2014). Stevenson is the main character of the book; it is about his journey from graduating Harvard Law School to being a civil rights fighter through his profession as a lawyer. It was after I read this book that I learned the real brutality of imprisonment in the United States. […]

Book Summary: Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson

In Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption, a book by Bryan Stevenson, readers are taken along on an emotional rollercoaster while following the stories of Alabama death row inmates and their struggle to survive. Bryan Stevenson, a SPDC lawyer and activist, narrates his past of representing wrongly charged death row inmates in the Alabama justice system and his efforts to fight for their equality. In his book, Stevenson entices readers with his compassionate personality and knowledge of the […]

Just Mercy: a Story of Justice and Redemption

The Novel, Just Mercy, by Bryan Stevenson illustrates Bryan Stevenson's career as a legal advocate for troubled people. These people were given very harsh sentences or wrongly convicted, which means they were thrown in jail for something they never did. Bryan Stevenson felt it was his mission to help these people better there sentences and ultimately get them out of jail. My response to the novel was it was very hopeful and the tone really set this off. The tone […]

Just Mercy: Chlidren Incarceration Essay

Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by American Activist and Lawyer Bryan Stevenson is an account of his lifelong career as a lawyer as he advocated for and represented individuals who were wrongly and harshly sentenced for crimes they did not commit. The book profiles many cases throughout including Walter McMillian who was falsely accused of killing a white woman by the name of Rhonda Morrison and sentenced to death row. This books purpose is to bring awareness […]

Racism in Just Mercy by Stevenson

"In the three texts we learn about how poor minority groups are affected by racism. In Just Mercy, Stevenson recounts his life working with prisoners on death row that were wrongfully convicted. He also gives examples of his own experiences being a victim of racism. In the recording, The Runaways we learn about police indifference towards poor immigrant latino families. Even though many latino teens were going missing and getting killed the police ignored the families demand for immediate action. […]

Just Mercy: Justice in American

The book ""Just Mercy"" focuses on justice in American. The book is writing by Bryan Stevenson a guy who graduated from college with a degree in philosophy then later figured out philosophy wasn't really too much for him so he deiced to go to law school to focus more of the racial in the justice system. In the middle of his career he went deep south where he met a lot of people on death row that were dying for […]

Just Mercy – Equal Justice Initiative

Through his book, Just Mercy, Bryan Stevenson revisits his career as a legal advocate for marginalized people who haven't been treated fairly by law enforcement. Stevenson moves to Atlanta to work for the Southern Prisoners Defense Committee and later movies to Alabama where he founds his organization, the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI). In Alabama, Stevenson represents many death row inmates, one of which was Walter McMillian who became connected with EJI while on death row. Stevenson takes over the case […]

Just Mercy Review

A judge that passes down a less than desirable and lenient sentence to a criminal, causes strife and anger among those who witness it. One expects a judge to impose the full extent of the law because justice is punishment and has no room for mercy. However, outside the rules of the law, friendships between families, colleagues, and acquaintances all call for mercy and compassion. Justice and mercy can seemingly oppose each other and can be qualities that one struggles […]

Just Mercy: the Clear Portrait of American Justice System

Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson is the clear portrait of American Justice system where some selected generation and selected category people are being deprived and being miss judge by the law enforcement authority. This dishonesty bug destroying lots of innocent life and pushing them into the uncertain black hole in their life. They are deprived of civil rights, begin deprived of right justice so on. In the book, the author discussed the racism, corruption in the justice system and abuse […]

Just Mercy: Bryan Stevenson’s Odyssey of Compassion and Redemption in Cinematic Brilliance

The cinematic marvel "Just Mercy," unfurling on screens in 2019, vividly echoes Bryan Stevenson's gripping memoir, illuminating his tireless quest for justice and mercy within a deeply flawed legal system. Director Destin Daniel Cretton intricately weaves the narrative around the young lawyer Bryan Stevenson, portrayed with profound conviction by Michael B. Jordan. The film encapsulates Stevenson's resolute determination to advocate for the rights of wrongly convicted prisoners, centering on the poignant case of Walter McMillian, portrayed by Jamie Foxx, unjustly […]

Humanity in the Courtroom: Breaking down ‘Just Mercy’ by Bryan Stevenson

Crack open Bryan Stevenson's "Just Mercy," and you're not just reading a book; you're stepping into the trenches of America's justice system. This isn’t your typical legal narrative; it's a deep dive into the heart of the legal system, guided by Stevenson’s compassionate voice and his unwavering belief in justice and equality. Let's walk through the pages of "Just Mercy," unraveling the stories that reveal the flaws and the humanity within the American legal system. From the get-go, "Just Mercy" […]

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How To Write an Essay About Just Mercy

Understanding 'just mercy' by bryan stevenson.

Before writing an essay about 'Just Mercy,' it is essential to thoroughly understand the book. Written by Bryan Stevenson, a lawyer and social justice advocate, 'Just Mercy' is a powerful narrative that focuses on the American justice system, highlighting issues of racial inequality and wrongful convictions. The book primarily revolves around the case of Walter McMillian, a black man wrongfully sentenced to death for the murder of a white woman in Alabama. Start by analyzing the main themes of the book, such as the flaws in the criminal justice system, the impact of racial discrimination, and the power of mercy and forgiveness. Familiarizing yourself with Stevenson’s legal battles and the personal stories he shares will provide a solid foundation for your essay.

Developing a Focused Thesis Statement

Your essay should be guided by a clear, focused thesis statement. This statement should present a specific argument or perspective about 'Just Mercy.' For example, you might discuss the book's portrayal of the systemic racism in the American justice system, or how Stevenson’s narrative offers insights into the struggles for legal reforms. Your thesis will shape your analysis and provide a structured approach to discussing the book.

Gathering Supporting Evidence

To build a compelling argument in your essay, gather evidence from the book to support your thesis. This might include specific cases Stevenson discusses, statistical data he provides, or personal anecdotes that illustrate the broader themes of the book. Analyzing Stevenson’s arguments and the evidence he uses to support them will strengthen your essay and provide a solid basis for your arguments.

Analyzing Stevenson's Narrative and Advocacy

An important aspect of your essay should be an analysis of Bryan Stevenson’s narrative style and advocacy work. Discuss how Stevenson uses storytelling to convey complex legal and ethical issues, and how he combines personal narratives with broader social commentary. Analyzing the effectiveness of his approach in engaging and educating the reader will add depth to your essay.

Concluding the Essay

Conclude your essay by summarizing the main points of your analysis and restating your thesis in light of the evidence and discussion provided. Your conclusion should tie together your insights into 'Just Mercy,' emphasizing the book’s impact on your understanding of justice and social reform. Reflect on the broader implications of Stevenson's work, such as its relevance to current social justice movements and legal practices.

Reviewing and Refining the Essay

After completing your essay, review and edit it for clarity and coherence. Ensure that your arguments are well-structured and supported by evidence from the book. Pay attention to grammar and syntax to ensure your writing is clear and professional. Seeking feedback from others, such as peers or instructors, can provide new perspectives and help you polish your essay. A well-crafted essay on 'Just Mercy' will not only demonstrate your understanding of the book but also your ability to engage critically with important social issues.

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