‘Bryan Stevenson is one of my personal heroes, perhaps the most inspiring and influential crusader for justice alive today, and Just Mercy is extraordinary. The stories told within these pages hold the potential to transform what we think we mean when we talk about justice.’
Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow
‘This is so important. Stevenson explains how deep-rooted racism is, while giving hope that it doesn’t have to exist.'
Gloria Steinem
‘Not since Atticus Finch has a fearless and committed lawyer made such a difference in the American South. Though larger than life, Atticus exists only in fiction. Bryan Stevenson, however, is very much alive and doing God’s work fighting for the poor, the oppressed, the voiceless, the vulnerable, the outcast, and those with no hope. Just Mercy is his inspiring and powerful story.’
John Grisham
‘After the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., I wrote a couple of columns entitled When Whites Just Don’t Get It. The reaction to those columns — sometimes bewildered, resentful or unprintable — suggests to me that many whites in America don’t understand the depths of racial inequity lingering in this country. This inequity is embedded in our law enforcement and criminal justice system, and that is why Bryan Stevenson may, indeed, be America's Mandela … Stevenson, 54, grew up in a poor black neighborhood in Delaware and ended up at Harvard Law School. He started the Equal Justice Initiative, based in Montgomery, Ala., to challenge bias and represent the voiceless. It's a tale he recounts in a searing, moving and infuriating memoir that is scheduled to be published later this month, Just Mercy.’
Nick Kristof, New York Times
‘Unfairness in the justice system is a major theme of our age … This book brings new life to the story by placing it in two affecting contexts: Stevenson's life work and the deep strain of racial injustice in American life … You don't have to read too long to start cheering for this man. Against tremendous odds, Stevenson has worked to free scores of people from wrongful or excessive punishment, arguing five times before the Supreme Court … The book extols not his nobility, but that of the cause, and reads like a call to action for all that remains to be done … The message of the book, hammered home by dramatic examples of one man's refusal to sit quietly and countenance horror, is that evil can be overcome, a difference can be made. Just Mercy will make you upset and it will make you hopeful … Bryan Stevenson has been angry about [the criminal justice system] for years, and we are all the better for it.’
Ted Conover, The New York Times
‘Just Mercy is every bit as moving as To Kill a Mockingbird, and in some ways more so … [It] demonstrates, as powerfully as any book on criminal justice that I’ve ever read, the extent to which brutality, unfairness, and racial bias continue to infect criminal law in the United States. But at the same time that [Bryan] Stevenson tells an utterly damning story of deep-seated and widespread injustice, he also recounts instances of human compassion, understanding, mercy, and justice that offer hope ... Just Mercy is a remarkable amalgam, at once a searing indictment of American criminal justice and a stirring testament to the salvation that fighting for the vulnerable sometimes yields.’
David Cole, The New York Review of Books
‘Inspiring … A work of style, substance and clarity … Stevenson is not only a great lawyer, he's also a gifted writer and storyteller. His memoir should find an avid audience among players in the legal system — jurists, prosecutors, defense lawyers, legislators, academics, journalists — and especially anyone contemplating a career in criminal justice.’
Rob Warden, The Washington Post
‘Just Mercy is as deeply moving, poignant and powerful a book as has been, and maybe ever can be, written about the death penalty, and the failures of the administration of criminal justice … [It] will make you gasp at the inhumanity of humankind.’
Raymond Bonner, Financial Times
‘This powerful book is a damning indictment of the US ‘justice’ system, which has the world’s highest rate of incarceration … A gifted narrator as well as a great lawyer, from his long dedication to helping the poor to achieve justice and mercy, he has learned that “each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve ever done.”’
Brian Maye, The Irish Times
‘[A] powerful book about the legal war [Stevenson] waged against unjust sentencing practices in the USA … This book will shock, anger and inspire you.’
Sunday Independent (Ireland)
‘Stevenson’s revelatory and thought-provoking memoir, Just Mercy, is a read that alters one’s empathy meter and forever sits deep within the psyche.’
Jessica Bailey, Grazia
‘A distinguished NYU law professor and MacArthur grant recipient offers the compelling story of the legal practice he founded to protect the rights of people on the margins of American society ... Emotionally profound, necessary reading.’ STARRED REVIEW
Kirkus Reviews (Kirkus Prize Finalist)
‘[T]he author’s experience with the flaws in the American justice system add extra gravity to a deeply disturbing and oft-overlooked topic.’
Publishers Weekly
‘A passionate account of the ways our nation thwarts justice and inhumanely punishes the poor and disadvantaged.’ STARRED REVIEW
Vanessa Bush, Booklist
‘Just Mercy presents a scathing exposé of the inequalities, racial bias and discrimination that has characterised the US justice system ... A profoundly important work.’
Natalie Platten, Readings
‘Stevenson's contributions to social justice have been remarkable. But his efforts, on top of his continuing legal practice, to provide this inside glimpse of the criminal justice system are priceless.’
The Seattle Times
‘Stevenson reveals how much of a difference believing in someone and fighting their cause can make. An incredible story … may help fuel the fire on your own journey.’
Wellbeing
‘Lawyer Bryan Stevenson has saved more than 135 people from death row, the majority of them Black men, who are disproportionately found at every stage of the US criminal justice system. In Just Mercy, he paints a picture of a system riddled with racial inequality that sentences children to die in prison and, he says, provides a better outcome if you are rich and guilty than if you are poor and innocent. The message of this astonishing memoir is that mercy is most powerful when it is freely given.
Dua Lipa, The Guardian
New York Times‘100 Notable Books of 2014’
‘A confronting look at the corrupt and prejudiced trappings of the current criminal justice system in the United States and a moving window into the lives of those persecuted by it.’
Citizens of the World
