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My short time on death row revealed that there was something missing in the way we were treating people in our judicial system, that maybe we judge some people unfairly. The more I reflected on the experience, the more I recognized that I had been struggling my whole life with the question of how and why people are judged unfairly.
In the novel’s Introduction, Stevenson reveals that he made the connection between his work and his own life early in his career. The first trip he takes to visit an inmate on death row helps him realize that questions of justice have preoccupied him his entire life, especially as a Black child growing up in rural Delaware. Offering this background information early in the novel gives the reader insight into the primary motivating forces behind the meaningful career he traces throughout the remainder of the novel.
“Your Honor, I just want to say this before we adjourn. It was far too easy to convict this wrongly accused man for murder and send him to death row for something he didn’t do and much too hard to win his freedom after proving his innocence. We have serious problems and important work that must be done in this state.”
Stevenson offers this final statement to the judge as McMillan’s final hearing, the one which grants him his freedom, draws to a close. In this moment, he acknowledges that freeing McMillan alone is not enough to enact meaningful change in Alabama’s legal system. Bringing attention to the illegal and unjust practices that led to McMillan’s conviction in the first place, Stevenson argues, is the only way to truly make progress toward a more equitable future.
As I sat there, I thought myself a fool for having tried to fix situations that were so fatally broken. It's time to stop. I can't do this anymore. For the first time I realized that my life was just full of brokenness. I worked in a broken system of justice.
In Chapter 15, Stevenson describes Jimmy Dill and EJI’s work to save him from execution. When they fail to convince the courts to issue a stay due to Dill’s intellectual disabilities, Stevenson feels completely hopeless and questions his ability to enact meaningful change. This quotation emphasizes the harsh emotional toll of his work, but it also leads to one of his most profound realizations about the sense of shared humanity that comes from acknowledging individual brokenness.
