What Are The Rhetorical Devices In Just Mercy

Are some lives worth more than others? Are some lives worthy to be considered lives at all? Bryan Stevenson aims to answer that in his book Just Mercy. In it, he explores the American justice system and its systemic prejudice, whether it’s based on race, income, or gender. Stevenson is a lawyer who founded the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), an Alabama-based nonprofit that aims to defend those who have been unfairly represented or unjustly imprisoned, and Just Mercy is a compilation of some of the cases he encountered during his time. Just Mercy is a collection of redemption and corruption--almost everyone he represents in the story finds their freedom from the unnecessarily harsh sentences they were given. In every other chapter he details the stories of multiple people punished by the legal system, including women and children. It is notable that throughout these chapters Stevenson emphasizes real, human connections with his clients to shine light on how distant and unjust the prison system is. In a system where these people are given subhuman treatment, Stevenson reaffirms their inherent dignity and cares for them. This has a profound effect on them and the people around them, seen especially in the cases of Charlie (Chapter 6), Joe Sullivan (Chapter 14), and Avery Jenkins (Chapter 10).

The book “Just Mercy” written by Bryan Stevenson, examine and expose the inequality in our criminal justice system. The story begins with Mr. Stevenson doing an internship program in Georgia. The internship program required him to visit an inmate named Henry who is sentenced to the death. Mr Stevenson at the time of his internship was a confused grad student who was uncertain of his future. After his visit from meeting Henry he realized that our justice system judges people unfairly. Mr. Stevenson vows to protect the poor from being wrongly condemned.

“Finally, I 've come to believe that the true measure of our commitment to justice, the character of our society, our commitment to the rule of law, fairness, and equality cannot be measured by how we treat the rich, the powerful, the privileged, and the respected among us. The true measure of our character is how we treat the poor, the disfavored, the accused, the incarcerated, and the condemned. We are all implicated when we allow other people to be mistreated,” (Stevenson 18). Within Bryan Stevenson’s novel, Just Mercy, the truths of social inequalities in our criminal justice system are confronted and assessed. Discoveries are made on how the social status of a person impacts the way society perceives them. Despite actions made towards others in the majority, an individual’s character will be measured by how they behave towards people in the minority. Through Harper Lee’s portrayal of hostility that various characters possess towards minorities in her novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, and Stevenson’s unforgettable descriptions of social inequalities that the incarcerated face, a similar theme is exhibited. The social status of an individual will influence society’s behavior in a negative or positive way and provoke inequality within a community.

In his memoir titled Just Mercy, Bryan Stevenson recounts his time serving as a defense attorney for a non-profit organization and his subsequent service as the head of his own legal project where he defended those abused by the unjust legal processes in Alabama during the 1980s and 90s. Stevenson would eventually come to specialize in defending inmates from at risk groups on death row in Alabama, a state where condemned inmates were allowed to not have access to lawyers and the necessary appeals that allow them to argue for their life.

Modern forms of this include racial profiling, discrimination, and assumption of guilt. The author of the book, Brian Stevenson, discusses in the book numerous instances in which he himself was the victim of racial profiling and discrimination. He was racially profiled by cops while parked in front of his own house. They pointed a gun at his head and illegally searched his car, and then told him that he was lucky because they were going to let him go (Stevenson 39-42). Later in the book, during Walter’s trial, he, along with all the other black people who are there to support Walter McMillan, is discriminated against by courtroom officials. They were refusing to let any black people in to the courtroom. The guard did not know that Stevenson was the attorney, and so he refused to let him in until Stevenson told the guard who he was (Stevenson 174). Stevenson is not alone in these types of experiences. Every single one of his clients, and their families, are the victims of racism and

Bryan Stevenson, founder of the Equal Justice Initiative and a professor at New York University Law School, brilliantly captures the stories of Walter McMillian and many others who have suffered from the corruption and racism of the criminal justice system in his novel Just Mercy. He exposes the abuse of laws by government officials to inflict severe sentences on the poor and suffering people of this nation. He wants his readers to feel the agony and helplessness of these people who have been forgotten and left to the hands of a cruel and unrelenting organization. Just Mercy argues that government officials prey on the poor and condemn them in an unjust way.

.In the Novel Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson, Bryan has met many difficult situations that have led to heartbreaking death penalties and unjustified charges. The men that stood out to Bryan Stevenson the most were Joe Sullivan and Herbert Richardson because of their harsh penalties. Joe Sullivan was a 13-year-old African-American boy who was convinced by two other black teens to break into an elderly woman’s home. Later that afternoon elderly woman Lena Bruner was brutally raped. Joe turns himself in, admits to being involved in the robbery but denies any involvement in the sexual assault. Joe was later charged with sexual battery. After Joe was put into jail for his unjustified involvement, Bryan Stevenson later found out that Joe was sexually

The stories of long grueling hours at his own law firm and driving hours away from home to help clients are the vertebrae of Bryan Stevenson’s book, Just Mercy. Rather than a terribly persuasive story filled with solutions to making this world a better place; Stevenson marries his triumphs and failures of being an lawyer to the emotional journey him and his clients take everyday. This formula allows readers to be stimulated throughout the entirety of the book whilst possibly making truer views and opinions about our country’s justice system.

The book, Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption, written by Bryan Stevenson is about the bias and unjustness in the United States justice system. The book begins when Stevenson was an intern for the Southern Prisoners Defense Committee (SPDC), it was during that time that he had his first encounter with a condemned man on death row. During that meeting the inmate talked about an array of things: from his personal life and family, to the unethical happenings during his trial. It was that chance encounter that would spark Stevenson’s true passion of helping those that had their constitutional rights trampled on. During his time at Harvard Law he would find himself questioning his choice in professions, he felt disconnected from his

Just Mercy is a powerful, eye-opening memoir about criminal justice, social justice, mercy, and race. Stevenson links all of these aspects together to create a narrative that exposes the corruption, prejudice, and abuse of power that runs rampant in our justice system. The criminal justice system today is prosecuting a disproportionally high rate of minorities, and they are shown less mercy than those who are white and privileged. This means that our criminal justice system is failing at promoting social justice, and we must fight for those who come from a different race or disadvantaged social background. Our justice system will not truly be just until we start promoting social justice by using mercy and leaving race out of the process.

Bryan Stevenson’s book Just Mercy is a tale of justice and injustice alike. It describes his life and some of the more prominent cases he worked on as a lawyer, seeking justice for the wrongly convicted. These cases usually involve the unfair treatment of minorities in the legal system.

Just Mercy is about a lawyer fighting for the innocent people who are wrongfully accused and put on death row. Bryan Stevenson, the author of the book talks a lot about mass incarceration in the United States. The extreme punishment that the unfortunate face based on their race, social class, and other factors is an act of inhumanity. This book is basically about the injustice in the American criminal justice system. I am startled about what I have learned throughout his book. My firm believe is that these kind of obstacles are not discussed so it gets even worse. People are unaware of what is happening or better still some are not ready to face the reality that such actions are taking place.

As we analyze Just Mercy sociologically, we gain a better understanding of essential concepts and core values Stevenson portrays to us throughout the different cases discussed throughout the book. These concepts include mitigation, profiling, and juvenile sentencing. To begin, the term mitigation refers to the belittling of something; which could be someone's emotions, trauma, or an event. In Just Mercy, Stevenson dedicates a portion of his book to the mentally ill, with “over 50 percent of prison and jail inmates in the United States have a diagnosed mental illness, a rate nearly five times greater than that of the general adult population” (pg. 188). This fifty percent represents an immense mitigation in our society. The moment one of our

Just Mercy is a book about a lawyer, Bryan Stevenson, that works as an attorney to try and defend those individuals that were wrongly convicted. The victims that he’s working for are all on death row for either something they didn’t do or something they had no wrong intentions on when they did it. Stevenson tried to use mercy in the courts to try and make the justice system dismiss his clients’ cases.

The novel Just Mercy, by Bryan Stevenson, is a heart wrenching novel that tells stories about death row inmates that Bryan Stevenson has represented as a lawyer. The person that I want to talk about today is Walter McMillian. McMillian was convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of Ronda Morrison, a young white woman who worked as a clerk at Jackson Cleaners in Monroeville Alabama. He was held on Death Row prior to being convicted and sentenced to death. There was no tangible evidence against McMillian. He was held on Death Row before he was even convicted and sentenced to death; his trial lasted only a day and a half. Three witnesses testified against McMillian, and the jury ignored multiple black witnesses, who testified that he was at a church fish fry at the time of the crime. The trial judge overrode the jury’s sentence for life in prison without parole and sentenced McMillian to death instead. Stevenson took on McMillian’s case, and he exposed that the state’s witnesses had lied, and the prosecution had withheld very important evidence that proved McMillian’s innocence. McMillian was released in 1993 after spending six years on death row.