Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson

 When Bryan Stevenson graduated law school, he knew what he wanted to do.  He wanted to help those who had been wrongly convicted and were on Death Row.  He wanted to stop the state executing those who had been minors when they were convicted.  He wanted to stop the executions of those who had been at a crime scene but had done nothing there.  He moved to one of the worst states for injustice at the time, Alabama, and opened his law firm, a nonprofit.

In this book about his law practice, he illustrates the injustices he fights by narrating the case of one of his first attempts, Walter McMillian.  Walter had been doing fairly well for himself in an area where black people were usually impoverished as he had a timber business.  But Walter had a straying eye and one of his conquests was a white woman.  This was in the 1980's and there was still a lot of prejudice around interracial relationships and lots of people had it out for Walter.  When a young white girl was killed while working in a dry cleaning store, it was a major case.  Although Walter was twenty miles away at a family fish fry with several dozen witnesses, he was arrested on the word of a white witness and a black man who wanted to get his own sentence reduced.  Walter was sent to Death Row and was there for six years.  Eventually, Stevenson managed to prove his wrongful conviction and get him released.  Walter had years left to live but sadly, as he got older, he believed he was back on Death Row and spent many days scared and lonely.

This nonfiction book has won numerous awards, as has Stevenson's law practice which continues its work to eliminate the death penalty or at least to free those wrongfully convicted.  That means not only those who didn't do the crime for which they were sentenced but those who were too young to have formed intent or those who were mentally incapable.  Stevenson even won the McArthur Fellowship which gives a cash award, $800,000 currently, to those who show creativity and talent in a field.  Readers will follow the cases he discusses with disbelief and horror and the book has the potential to change minds about the death penalty.  This book is recommended for nonfiction readers.