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Summary: Chapter Fifteen: Broken—Part I
Walter is featured in a documentary about the death penalty, which Stevenson shows at the office. Walter gets very anxious at the presentation, so they go to a doctor, who diagnoses Walter with advancing dementia. Walter’s relatives take turns caring for him, but eventually he moves into a facility. This situation comes at a time when the Equal Justice Initiative has agreed to represent anyone on death row facing execution. Stevenson visits Walter in the nursing home, and Walter, in his dementia, thinks he is on death row and asks Stevenson to get him out. Stevenson talks about the increased rate of executions in Alabama, which bucks a national trend.
During this time, Stevenson also works to get condemned children out of prison. He works on the case of Jimmy Dill, who suffers from an intellectual disability and was abused as a child. Jimmy shot someone who died nine months later and, due to poor legal representation, Jimmy was sentenced to death. Stevenson is unsuccessful in blocking his execution, but Jimmy, a terrible stutterer, still calls Stevenson to express his gratitude for trying to save his life. Stevenson begins to cry as a memory from childhood comes flooding back. Stevenson remembers laughing at a boy who stuttered and his mother making him apologize and hug the boy and say that he loved him. The boy said that he loved Stevenson, too. In the present, Jimmy tells Stevenson he loves him and everyone at the Equal Justice Initiative before he ends the call.
Summary: Chapter Fifteen: Broken—Part II
Stevenson listens to Jimmy stuttering on the phone before his execution and thinks that despite how the world has treated him, Jimmy retains his humanity. Stevenson doesn’t understand how so many people can be involved in killing vulnerable people and feels overwhelmed by this lack of compassion. Stevenson realizes that he’s surrounded by brokenness: clients broken by circumstances and a broken justice system. He considers quitting but eventually understands that he does this work because he is broken, too, from years of fighting injustice. Because Stevenson recognizes this fact, he also creates a need for mercy. He believes that if people could acknowledge brokenness, they would be more merciful to other broken people and not want harsh punishment for the most vulnerable.
Stevenson recounts meeting the civil rights activist Rosa Parks with her friends. During their meeting, Stevenson told Parks about the Equal Justice Initiative and his work, and Parks responded that he must be tired. Another woman told him to be brave. The scene returns to the present with Stevenson reminding himself to be brave. He sees an email invitation to speak to students in a poor school district to give them hope and inspiration, and he accepts. Driving home, Stevenson thinks about the stuttering boy who showed him mercy that he did not deserve. He reflects that unexpected mercy can break the cycle of suffering and provide healing.
Summary: Chapter Sixteen: The Stonecatchers’ Song of Sorrow
In 2010, the Supreme Court rules that sentencing children convicted of non-homicides to life without parole is unconstitutional and, two years later, extends that to children convicted of homicides. The Equal Justice Initiative sees increased success in its death penalty cases, and Alabama sharply reduces its executions. Nationwide, mass incarceration is also slowing down. Stevenson talks about the four institutions that he believes have shaped the country’s approach to race and justice: slavery; the post-Reconstruction era of terror, which reinforced the racial hierarchy; Jim Crow and legalized racial segregation; and mass incarceration, which disproportionately targets people of color.
As the Equal Justice Initiative grows, staff members work on hundreds of appeals, but Stevenson prioritizes the resentencing hearings of two men—Joshua Carter and Robert Caston—who have been incarcerated for almost fifty years each. After several delays, the lawyers present their case for Carter. When the judge grants his immediate release, the entire courtroom breaks out in applause. Caston also gets released immediately. Afterward, Stevenson meets an older Black woman who asks to give him a hug. She often comes to the courthouse to help people because of the terrible pain she felt when her grandson was murdered and his killers were sentenced to life in prison. A stranger provided comfort, and now she does the same for others. She says she catches the metaphorical stones people cast at one another, even though catching stones makes you both sorrowful and happy.
Summary: Epilogue/Postscript
The epilogue explains that Walter died in 2013 after injuring himself in a fall. Stevenson reflects on a conversation with Walter about how being on death row makes you think about dying all the time. Walter thought execution was wrong because it was unnatural. In his eulogy at Walter’s funeral, Stevenson says that Walter became like a brother to him, but also taught him why it was so important to reform the racially and economically biased criminal justice system. Stevenson learned that the real question about the death penalty is not whether someone deserves to die, but whether we as a society deserve to kill. Walter taught Stevenson that mercy should be intertwined with hope and given to the undeserving. On his drive home, Stevenson hopes that he can continue to help people.
The postscript provides an update on other clients and issues. Anthony Ray Hinton, imprisoned for nearly thirty years, was released in 2015 after the Supreme Court ruled that prosecutors had to consider evidence proving his innocence. Trina Garnett became eligible for parole and Antonio Nuñez and Ian Manuel for release. The Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) continues to produce reports on significant racial issues and opened a museum and memorial. As executive director of EJI, Stevenson works with his staff to continue to represent people on death row and those unfairly incarcerated. In 2019, EJI won a Supreme Court case that banned the execution of people with dementia or neurological disease. Stevenson continues to hope that we can all do better in
Analysis
Stevenson returns to the theme of understanding through closeness as he reveals his own brokenness and argues that everyone is broken in some way. He asserts that being broken is a fundamental part of being human. Though not everyone has experienced racism, or poverty, or abuse, or the trauma in the prison system, all individuals navigate life with some sort of damage. Stevenson suggests that his proximity to his clients and their cases did not only reveal the brokenness of others, but his own brokenness as well. He argues that participating in or allowing a system of injustice that impacts children, the disabled, the weak, and the sick is an attempt to deny one’s own brokenness. By punishing or hiding away those who are most broken, as the criminal justice system does, we continue to damage them. In contrast, he suggests that recognizing, getting close to, and understanding brokenness as part of humanity creates the power and potential for mercy.
In a conclusion to all of the ideas presented in Just Mercy, Stevenson highlights institutions in American history that continue to impact the attitudes toward race and justice. Though he’s touched on these elements through the stories of his clients in the book, Stevenson’s brief summary reinforces the historical issues that cause systemic racism in the current justice system. He uses the phrase of course in reference to the first institution, slavery, to suggest that he does not need to expound on the deep racial divide created as a result of the ownership of other human beings. Stevenson compares the second institution, racial terrorism, particularly lynching, to modern-day executions because of the racial imbalance of prisoners on death row. He contrasts Jim Crow, which legalized segregation and suppression of civil rights, to racial profiling, highlighting the personal side of this issue with his own experience with insults and humiliations. While Stevenson tells how he laughed off an instance of racial profiling by a judge, his choice of the words destructive and burden suggest that the impact is bigger than he lets on. Finally, he argues that mass incarceration can only be examined alongside racial history.
Having examined darkness through stories of mass incarceration and death row, Stevenson ends Just Mercy with elements of hope, implying his positive view of the future. The Supreme Court ruling eliminating life without parole sentences for juveniles symbolizes hope for his clients and for children, many of whom are victims of violence or neglect. The story of the stonecatcher, the woman who helps ease others’ burdens by sharing them, describes Stevenson himself as he works to mitigate the problems of a broken justice system. At McMillian’s memorial service, Stevenson notes that his hope allowed him to live a life that deserves to be celebrated. Stevenson hands out his phone number to those who need help at the funeral, showing that he will continue to “beat the drum for justice.” In doing so, he enhances his own ability to hope. Finally, Stevenson’s update on his clients suggests that providing them with hope when they were incarcerated empowered them to do the same for others by sharing education, music, and poetry. In contrast to all of the darkness he’s witnessed in his fight for justice, Stevenson’s continued work with EJI symbolizes hope for the better.
