Fight the System! (or Not) Throughout the history of the United States of America, the justice system and the opinions of citizens on how the system should work have vastly developed and have varied. Many US citizens currently believe that the justice system has been fair since the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, but Bryan Stevenson, author of Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption, has a different view. Stevenson believes that being equal under the law did not actually fix the legal system. Stevenson argues that minorities and the poor are marginalized by the American justice system. Therefore, Stevenson thinks “the opposite of poverty is not wealth; the opposite of poverty is justice” (Stevenson 18). Stevenson is a bit misguided
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Based on the work of Stevenson and all the evidence he presented once he took over the case, Walter McMillian was clearly innocent, and his lawyers he had before Stevenson should have been able to defend him without much difficulty. Instead, his first lawyers were relatively incompetent and did not care about whether their client won or lost the case. When a witness of the prosecution testified that the truck he had seen at the scene of the crime was a “low rider,” “Walter instantly whispered to his lawyers that he hadn’t turned his truck into a ‘low rider’ until several months after Morrison was murdered” (Stevenson 66). Unfortunately, “his lawyers didn’t do much with that information, which frustrated Walter,” as it should have (Stevenson 66). His lawyers were supposed to defend him and keep him from going to prison or being sentenced to death, but for whatever reasons, they were not concerned with doing their job. Another instance where the lawyers of McMillian did not defend him properly was when they were presenting evidence of his location on the day of the murder. McMillian was having a “fish fry” at his home and …show more content…
He left town without picking up his check, which had been ready for collection for over two days before his departure. His mother, a poor woman who knew the value of a dollar to someone like George, found this behavior more demonstrative of mental illness than anything else she could point to, and she authorized the lawyers to obtain the unclaimed check in the hope that they could present it at the trial to confirm George’s confused mental state. (Stevenson 191)
One would hope that the lawyers would have defended their client properly by acting as the mother of George had hoped. These two pieces of human garbage “cashed the check to pay themselves instead of using it as evidence” (Stevenson 191). These two men did not care at all about whether their client avoided receiving the death penalty or not. They stole from the man they were supposed to defend instead of doing their job correctly and to the best of their ability. Three horrendous lawyers were ultimately the reason that George Daniel was sentenced to death, not a problem with the justice
Based on the work of Stevenson and all the evidence he presented once he took over the case, Walter McMillian was clearly innocent, and his lawyers he had before Stevenson should have been able to defend him without much difficulty. Instead, his first lawyers were relatively incompetent and did not care about whether their client won or lost the case. When a witness of the prosecution testified that the truck he had seen at the scene of the crime was a “low rider,” “Walter instantly whispered to his lawyers that he hadn’t turned his truck into a ‘low rider’ until several months after Morrison was murdered” (Stevenson 66). Unfortunately, “his lawyers didn’t do much with that information, which frustrated Walter,” as it should have (Stevenson 66). His lawyers were supposed to defend him and keep him from going to prison or being sentenced to death, but for whatever reasons, they were not concerned with doing their job. Another instance where the lawyers of McMillian did not defend him properly was when they were presenting evidence of his location on the day of the murder. McMillian was having a “fish fry” at his home and …show more content…
He left town without picking up his check, which had been ready for collection for over two days before his departure. His mother, a poor woman who knew the value of a dollar to someone like George, found this behavior more demonstrative of mental illness than anything else she could point to, and she authorized the lawyers to obtain the unclaimed check in the hope that they could present it at the trial to confirm George’s confused mental state. (Stevenson 191)
One would hope that the lawyers would have defended their client properly by acting as the mother of George had hoped. These two pieces of human garbage “cashed the check to pay themselves instead of using it as evidence” (Stevenson 191). These two men did not care at all about whether their client avoided receiving the death penalty or not. They stole from the man they were supposed to defend instead of doing their job correctly and to the best of their ability. Three horrendous lawyers were ultimately the reason that George Daniel was sentenced to death, not a problem with the justice