Just Mercy: Chapters 5–8

by Bryan Stevenson
Bryan Stevenson details his experiences as a defense attorney, focusing on the case of Walter McMillian, who insisted on his innocence even after he was sentenced to the death penalty. This book provides an eye-opening behind-the-scenes look at how the criminal justice system works — or doesn't.

Here are links to our lists for the book: Introduction–Chapter 1, Chapters 2–4, Chapters 5–8, Chapters 9–11, Chapters 12–16
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. precariously
    in a manner affording no ease or reassurance
    The front porch was propped on three cinder blocks piled precariously beneath wood flooring that showed signs of rot.
  2. detritus
    the remains of something that has been destroyed or finished
    The yard was littered with abandoned car parts, tires, broken pieces of furniture, and other detritus.
  3. scrupulously
    with careful attention and effort to do something correctly
    These police put Walter on death row while he was a pretrial detainee; I feared that they would not scrupulously follow the legal requirement to turn over all exculpatory evidence that could help him prove his innocence.
  4. exculpatory
    clearing of guilt or blame
    These police put Walter on death row while he was a pretrial detainee; I feared that they would not scrupulously follow the legal requirement to turn over all exculpatory evidence that could help him prove his innocence.
  5. dispassionate
    unaffected by strong emotion or prejudice
    This one massive miscarriage of justice had afflicted the whole community with despair and made it hard for me to be dispassionate.
  6. testimonial
    something that serves as evidence
    I began answering questions and listening to comments and testimonials about Walter, the town, race, the police, the trial, and the way the whole family was now being treated by people in the community.
  7. seminal
    influential and providing a basis for later development
    Du Bois included in his seminal work, The Souls of Black Folk, a brilliant but haunting short story.
  8. tangible
    perceptible by the senses, especially the sense of touch
    The pain in that trailer was tangible—I could feel it.
  9. euphemism
    an inoffensive expression substituted for an offensive one
    “Interesting" was Walter's euphemism for odd people, and having worked for hundreds of people throughout the county over the years, he'd encountered no shortage of “interesting" people.
  10. parlance
    a manner of speaking natural to a language's native speakers
    The more unusual or bizarre the person was, the more “interesting" they would become in Walter's parlance.
  11. earnestly
    in a sincere and serious manner
    "Well, you know you can't help everybody," he looked at me earnestly. "You'll kill yourself if you try to do that."
  12. allege
    report or maintain
    But if the defendant alleges new evidence that could lead to a different outcome in the case—or that undermines the reliability of the trial—there is typically a hearing.
  13. bigoted
    blindly and obstinately attached to some creed or opinion
    I knew some of them were bigoted and abusive, but I guess I held out the hope that they could be reoriented.
  14. candid
    openly straightforward and direct without secretiveness
    I was intrigued that he would immediately give voice to the concerns of other people in law enforcement and was initially encouraged that he meant for us to have a candid conversation free of distractions and posturing.
  15. willful
    done by design
    I thought about the dozens of black people I'd met who had complained bitterly about Walter's prosecution, and I was starting to see Chapman as either naive or willfully indifferent—or worse.
  16. impunity
    exemption from punishment or loss
    Darnell's despair, his sadness in recognizing that they could do whatever they wanted to him with impunity, was utterly disheartening.
  17. musing
    a calm, lengthy, intent consideration
    I went through a range of ridiculous musings that yielded nothing from Charlie.
  18. adjudicate
    hear a case and sit as the judge at the trial of
    We ultimately got Charlie's case transferred to juvenile court, where the shooting was adjudicated as a juvenile offense.
  19. apprehensive
    mentally upset over possible misfortune or danger
    Charlie had been apprehensive about meeting with the Jenningses because he thought they wouldn't like him, but he told me after they left how much they seemed to care about him and how comforting that was.
  20. corroboration
    confirmation that some fact or statement is true
    I argued that there was no credible corroboration of Myers's testimony and that under Alabama law the State couldn't rely exclusively on the testimony of an accomplice.
  21. egregious
    conspicuously and outrageously bad or reprehensible
    I even challenged Judge Robert E. Lee Key's override of the jury's life sentence, though I knew the reduction of an innocent man's death sentence to life imprisonment without parole would still have been an egregious miscarriage of justice.
  22. segregationist
    someone who believes the races should be kept apart
    His positions were even more pro-segregation than Wallace's (who, having learned his lesson, would become the most famous segregationist in America, declaring in 1963 “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever" just a block away from this courthouse).
  23. arcane
    requiring secret or mysterious knowledge
    I had foolishly discouraged McMillian's family from attending the oral argument because I knew that the issues were fairly arcane and that there would be very little discussion of the facts.
  24. sleazy
    morally degraded
    I thought again about how sleazy Myers had been during the trial.
  25. recant
    formally reject or disavow a formerly held belief
    "We have to be careful to not reveal information to Myers—just get information he has. But we have to talk to him because if he recants his trial testimony, the State has nothing on Walter.''
  26. cursory
    hasty and without attention to detail; not thorough
    We were subjected to a very cursory pat-down in the prison lobby by a male officer before being admitted through the barred gate to the main prison area.
  27. garish
    tastelessly showy
    She was wearing makeup, including a garish shade of green eye shadow.
  28. coercion
    the act of compelling by force of authority
    Michael and I decided to spend more time looking into the Pittman murder; we thought it might give us some perspective on the coercion that was leveled against Myers.
  29. prevailing
    most frequent or common
    Fifty years ago, the prevailing concept in the American criminal justice system was that everyone in the community is the victim when an offender commits a violent crime.
  30. arbitrariness
    the trait of acting unpredictably and more from whim or caprice
    The Court prohibited jurors from hearing “victim impact” statements because they were too inflammatory and introduced arbitrariness into the capital sentencing process.
  31. empirical
    derived from experiment and observation rather than theory
    The Supreme Court's decision in Payne appeared shortly after the Court's decision in McCleskey v. Kemp, a case that presented convincing empirical evidence that the race of the victim is the greatest predictor of who gets the death penalty in the United States.
  32. preside
    act as executive officer
    This made little sense to us, because a Monroe County judge had presided over the trial, but there was nothing we could do.
  33. bemused
    perplexed by many conflicting situations or statements
    Neither of them smiled much—they greeted Michael and me with the bemused curiosity to which I was getting accustomed.
  34. municipality
    a local district having powers of self-government
    Trina Garnett was the youngest of twelve children living in the poorest section of Chester, Pennsylvania, a financially distressed municipality outside of Philadelphia.
  35. exacerbate
    make worse
    Her mother’s death, the abuse, and the desperate circumstances all exacerbated Trina's emotional and mental health problems.
  36. listless
    marked by low spirits; showing no enthusiasm
    She was so nonfunctional and listless that her appointed lawyer thought she was incompetent to stand trial.
  37. misgiving
    uneasiness about the fitness of an action
    Judge Reed expressed serious misgivings about the sentence he was forced to impose.
  38. convene
    call together
    A month later, a trial was convened.
  39. procedural
    relating to court practice as opposed to principles of law
    Their death-in-prison sentences were insulated from legal challenges or appeals by a maze of procedural rules, statutes of limitations, and legal barricades designed to make successful postconviction challenges almost impossible.
  40. sensory
    relating to or concerned in sensation
    But today, just the simple handshakes we shared was a welcome addition to my sensory deprived life.
Created on Fri Nov 16 11:19:29 EST 2018 (updated Fri Nov 16 15:25:39 EST 2018)

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