In Bryan Stevenson’s novel, Just Mercy, injustice and racial profiling frequently occurs. Stevenson outlines the great mass incarceration industrial complex and the extreme punishment so often delivered without fairness. Stevenson says that: “The prison population has increased from 300,000 people in the early 1970s to 2.3 million people today. There are nearly six million people on probation or on parole. One in every fifteen people born in the United States in 2001 is expected to go to jail or prison; one in every three black male babies born in this century is expected to be incarcerated. We have been shot, hanged, gassed, electrocuted, and lethally injected hundreds of people to carry out legally sanctioned executions” (page 20). This …show more content…
McMillan has been put on death row regardless of the fact that he has a secure alibi at the time of the crime he was accused of committing. Walter’s family hosted a fundraising fish fry on their front lawn for the members of their church. Walter was working with a friend of his on repairing the transmission of his car. A lot of the church members were able to vouch for McMillan being at the house as well. Nonetheless, Walter is arrested on false testimony and illegally placed on death row until the case was prepared. Once the case is ready, Walter’s appeal ends up being denied. Bryan Stevenson then has to search for new evidence to help Walter’s case and finally, after six years of being on death row Walter McMillan is released and able to return back to his community. I did not like this part of the book because it proves how unjust the system of justice is. Walter should not have been on death row in the first place nor should he have still been seen as a suspect after having multiple witnesses give him an alibi at the time of the crime. Walter was clearly targeted because of him being a black man. Although Walter has committed other minor crimes in the past, he was very much so innocent in this case. I feel as if black men are always made out to be criminals. This is definitely not right and needs to be put to an