Just Mercy: Introduction–Chapter 1

I didn't have a basic grasp of the complex appeals process that shaped death penalty litigation, a process that would in time become as familiar to me as the back of my hand.

Coming from a small college in Pennsylvania, I felt very fortunate to have been admitted, but by the end of my first year I’d grown disillusioned.

The courses seemed esoteric and disconnected from the race and poverty issues that had motivated me to consider the law in the first place.

Steve was in his mid-thirties and had a passion and certainty that seemed the direct opposite of my ambivalence.

I was taken aback by his immediate belief that I had something to offer.

He moved on to other subjects, but it was clear that his heart and his mind were aligned with the plight of the condemned and those facing unjust treatment in jails and prisons.

He explained that the man had been on the row for over two years and that they didn't yet have a lawyer to take his case; my job was to convey to this man one simple message: You will not be killed in the next year.

Around the office we just called it "Jackson,” so seeing the facility's actual name on a sign was jarring—it sounded clinical, even therapeutic.

I walked down a tunneled corridor to the legal visitation area, each step echoing ominously across the spotless tiled floor.

I walked down a tunneled corridor to the legal visitation area, each step echoing ominously across the spotless tiled floor.

I piled up courses on constitutional law, litigation, appellate procedure, federal courts, and collateral remedies.

It seemed that we were all cloaked in an unwelcome garment of racial difference that constrained, confined, and restricted us.

I said no a lot because it made me happy to be wrapped in her formidable arms.

This book is about getting closer to mass incarceration and extreme punishment in America.

It's also about a dramatic period in our recent history, a period that indelibly marked the lives of millions of Americans—of all races, ages, and sexes—and the American psyche as a whole.

When I first went to death row in December 1983, America was in the early stages of a radical transformation that would turn us into an unprecedentedly harsh and punitive nation and result in mass imprisonment that has no historical parallel.

When I first went to death row in December 1983, America was in the early stages of a radical transformation that would turn us into an unprecedentedly harsh and punitive nation and result in mass imprisonment that has no historical parallel.

We have created a new caste system that forces thousands of people into homelessness, bans them from living with their families and in their communities, and renders them virtually unemployable.

Scores of innocent people have been exonerated after being sentenced to death and nearly executed.

The privatization of prison health care, prison commerce, and a range of services has made mass incarceration a money-making windfall for a few and a costly nightmare for the rest of us.

The privatization of prison health care, prison commerce, and a range of services has made mass incarceration a money-making windfall for a few and a costly nightmare for the rest of us.

We are all implicated when we allow other people to be mistreated.

The next morning, when I arrived at work in another jeans and sneakers ensemble, she seemed startled, as if some strange vagrant had made a wrong turn into the office.

The next morning, when I arrived at work in another jeans and sneakers ensemble, she seemed startled, as if some strange vagrant had made a wrong turn into the office.

Do you know he's reputed to be one of the biggest drug dealers in all of South Alabama?

"This is Judge Key, and you don't want to have anything to do with this McMillian case. No one really understands how depraved this situation truly is, including me, but I know it's ugly. These men might even be Dixie Mafia."

“Well, I'm also not going to appoint you because I don't think he's indigent. He's reported to have money buried all over Monroe County."

Sentimentality about Lee's story grew even as the harder truths of the book took no root.

Lee's endearing characters, Atticus Finch and his precocious daughter, Scout, captivated readers while confronting them with some of the realities of race and justice in the South.

The children of sharecroppers in southern Alabama were introduced to “plowin’, plantin’, and pickin’” as soon as they were old enough to be useful in the fields.

Educational opportunities for black children in the 1950s were limited, but Walter's mother got him to the dilapidated “colored school" for a couple of years when he was young.

He astutely—and bravely—borrowed money to buy his own power saw, tractor, and pulpwood truck.

As word got around that the two were “friends," she seemed to take a titillating pride in her intimacy with Walter.

When Walter received a subpoena from Karen Kelly's husband to testify at a hearing where the Kellys would be fighting over their children's custody, he knew it was going to cause him serious problems.

Her lawyer objected to the crude questions posed to Walter by the husband's attorney about the nature of his friendship, sparing him from providing any details, but when he left the courtroom the anger and animosity toward him were palpable.

Her lawyer objected to the crude questions posed to Walter by the husband's attorney about the nature of his friendship, sparing him from providing any details, but when he left the courtroom the anger and animosity toward him were palpable.

The confluence of race and sex was a powerful force in dismantling Reconstruction after the Civil War, sustaining Jim Crow laws for a century and fueling divisive racial politics throughout the twentieth century.

The confluence of race and sex was a powerful force in dismantling Reconstruction after the Civil War, sustaining Jim Crow laws for a century and fueling divisive racial politics throughout the twentieth century.

In the aftermath of slavery, the creation of a system of racial hierarchy and segregation was largely designed to prevent intimate relationships like Walter and Karen's—relationships that were, in fact, legally prohibited by “anti-miscegenation statutes" (the word miscegenation came into use in the 1860s, when supporters of slavery coined the term to promote the fear of interracial sex and marriage and the race mixing that would result if slavery was abolished).

Occasionally drinking too much, getting into a fight, or even having an extramarital affair—these weren't indiscretions significant enough to destroy the reputation and standing of an honest and industrious black man who could be trusted to do good work.

But interracial dating, particularly with a married white woman, was for many whites, an unconscionable act.

In the South, crimes like murder or assault might send you to prison, but interracial sex was a transgression in its own unique category of danger with correspondingly extreme punishments.

The child custody proceedings and public scandal had taken a toll on her; she had started using drugs and seemed to fall apart.

After initially denying any direct involvement in the Pittman murder, Myers conceded that he may have played some accidental role but quickly put the blame for the murder itself on more interesting local figures.

Officials began to suspect that Myers was the sole killer and was desperately trying to implicate others to minimize his culpability.