“Just Mercy” stars Michael B. Jordan as Bryan Stevenson and Oscar award-winning actor Jamie Foxx as the wrongly convicted Walter McMillian. The film follows the true story of Bryan Stevenson, a defense attorney. Stevenson decides after graduating from Harvard to take his passion for defending others to the next level by starting his own firm called the Equal Justice Initiative in Alabama. There he defends convicted felons who are wrongly convicted or cannot afford representation. The film centers on Walter McMillian who is falsely accused of the murder of a young white woman in Monroeville, Alabama in 1987. Although all of the evidence presented in the case proved that he was innocent, McMillian was held on death row. Before being convicted, he was sentenced to death by electrocution. Mr. Stevenson and the rest of his staff started investigating the case when it was revealed that the State’s witness was coerced and pressured to lie at Walter’s trial. The Equal Justice Initiative presented the evidence. However, it took six years of hearings before the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals ruled that his conviction was unconstitutional. Mr. McMillian ended up serving six years on death row before all charges were dropped.
“Just Mercy” was an exceptional film that showed the harrowing truth of the criminal justice system in the United States. Mass incarceration is an issue that has disproportionately impacted the poor and people of color. For many death row inmates, it can take several years to get proper legal representation to prove their innocence. Although this problem is widespread and growing, it is often ignored. The truth of the matter is that mass incarceration is a business. In 2015, it was reported that the amount of money spent on jails and prisons had reached $87 billion. Currently, there are 2.2 million people incarcerated in the U.S. There are so many people who have been and are being failed by the criminal justice system. So many lives lost. After reading these statistics, it made me angry and frustrated. Now all I want to do is learn more about how I can help. The best way to get involved is to learn. I urge you to find out what criminal justice issues are affecting your local community. To improve public safety, we must create equality in the criminal justice system.
Although the film was not nominated for an Academy Award, it was nominated for six NAACP Image Awards, including Outstanding Motion Picture, Outstanding Actor, and Best Supporting Actor. “Just Mercy” is available in theaters now.