One World Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption

I bought the book, and although it arrived disheveled, customer service quickly resolved the issue. I’m so glad I got it, such a great purchase! 🙌🏽

A word of warning: don't start reading this book at night if you have to get up the next morning to go to work: the way Bryan Stevenson is such an amazing storyteller means you won't be able to put the book down and you'll arrive at work bleary-eyed! I first heard about Bryan when I bought Anthony Ray Hinton's "The Sun Does Shine", which was Ray's account of how, as an innocent black man, he found his way on death row. It was thanks to Bryan's skill and tenacity that Ray got to be one of the few lucky ones to be freed. Although I thought Stevenson's account would duplicate Ray's book and would be written in a legal jargon style, I decided to order it anyway and how glad I am I did! Apart from being a truly extraordinary person who has dedicated his life to defend poor blacks against the insanely inhuman USA "justice" system, he is also an amazingly gifted writer. From a literary point of view, his book is a masterpiece. From a purely humanitarian point of view, it should really be required reading in all the colleges, universities and especially law faculties throughout the USA. For the European I am (at least in this present incarnation) it is hard to understand how the American system can be so corrupt and lacking in compassion that innocent people can be legally murdered. The death penalty has been abolished in all European countries a long time ago. May all States of the USA follow suit now! Surely a book like "Just Mercy" paves the way for this.

Absolutely beautiful, but eye- opening and maddening sad. A must read.

A must read for EVERYONE to understand the injustice of our world.

An absolutely brilliant book by a brilliant man... couldn't put it down. Provides an excellent insight into how the US criminal justice works, and fails. A stark warning to the UK criminal justice system to remain robust, independent and hold onto its fraying edifices...the recent erosions of Legal Aid and the mounting pressure to undermine the role of Human Rights law in our courts must be considered in the light of its darker alternatives. This book exposes (to me) the US constitution as based on premises that only serve those in power; called upon in law as some kind of primitive human rights framework, to protect powerful institutional interests, especially in the South (think about the constitutional 'right' to bear arms in light of the recent gun massacres). There is little to be seen of any authentic rights-counterbalance, such as we take for granted with the UNCHR. This works one way... to oppress and condemn away forever those who are poor, have no voice, women, pregnant women, children and black Americans. The constitution can thus be seen as a cleverly conceived and well-veiled mechanism for driving forward the historic vehicles of racism and misogyny - one kind of brutality replaced by another, with a modern cloak of respectability. Stevenson works ceaselessly to fight cases that seem hopeless and he drills right down into an invisible world, latching on like a dog to cases that involve people that have been thrown away for years - people with physical and learning disabilities, people muted by their oppression until they are nameless. He sees the humanity residing in each and every individual, those the rest of us ignore or discard. His driving force is hope and belief, not just on a macro level (for change in the US, which he works towards) but for each one of those individuals, who are finally given a name in his book. He works for years, and years, on multiple single cases, especially those condemned to death, never giving up, ever. This book is not especially political, it says 'this is how it is' and is supported by facts, research and academic sources - not spurious emotive claims nor media style moralising. In places it leans towards religiosity, which can seem like 'americanisation' to a European audience, but this is just context and culture, important to the author and his own journey, and to be respected and understood in light of the deeper messages (authentic human rights are free from religious considerations). But it can politicise those who read it with a critical mind and an open heart, and can refresh our understanding of what exactly we mean by "justice". Could the US ever embrace Human (not Civil, not constitutional, but human being) Rights? It takes the life work of people such as Stevenson to give us all hope....and hope is the one word he gives to all those he works for.