A Book Review by Rebecca Moll: Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson

It is fitting that I finished this book, Just Mercy, on the day another prisoner was exonerated, set free after more than 20 years of incarceration for a crime he did NOT commit.

My 17 year old daughter was required to read this book as a part of a school wide reading this year. There is hope.

I am appalled that, once, I thought the "Three Strikes" program was just. Please understand, I am a skeptical reader; I know the persuasive power of good writing. I know, I've heard, "Everyone in jail is innocent." My formal training is in research. I am not easily convinced. Yet, read the book, absorb the stories, visit EJI's website, Facebook page, understand, that is not what this book is about, what EJI is about....It is about fair justice for those who have no voice.

I find it hard to swallow such unjust cruelty, the refusal to re-exam sentences in light of new technology, glaring evidential inconsistences and proof otherwise. How easily our country has assumed the risk of condemning an innocent person to death. Especially, the children. Why? Pride? Ego?

And if proven innocent, what about the real criminal? The real murderer, rapist? What about the victim's family? What about the victims? Don't they deserve Just Mercy? Don't they deserve the real criminal to face justice?

Bryan Stevenson and EJI are relentless advocates for these margins of society. They have created real change, catalyzed our country's legal system. They have energized a static and lifeless process that should be a dynamic by equation. They are examining and exposing the attitudes and underlying physiological, socialogical, and economical currents that support and propagate injustice, discrimination, and ignorance.

Change is a hard thing, slow and stubborn.

"You are better than the worst wrong you have done. I am better than the worst wrong I have done. They are better than the worst wrong they have done."

Just Mercy. Just do it.