Just Mercy

By the time Herbert calls the EJI, his execution is scheduled in 30 days. Legal processes move slowly, so this leaves little room for Stevenson to usher the case through the red tape of the appeals process, let alone build a convincing argument for the sentencing to be overturned. What's more, Stevenson has just lost two cases that ended in horrific executions for his clients. At first, he turns Herbert down: he has neither the time nor the emotional resources to take on such a difficult case.

Stevenson instantly feels ashamed of the "bureaucratic demurrals" he offered to Herbert over the phone, and he is relieved that Herbert calls him back. At first, Stevenson seems focused on redeeming himself through a more human followup conversation. However, it becomes "impossible for [Stevenson] to say no" once Herbert explains what his help would mean.  "I have twenty-nine days left," Herbert says, "and I don't think I can make it if there is no hope at all. Just say you'll do something and let me have some hope." Stevenson realizes that arguing Herbert's case is about more than winning. It is also about giving Herbert the feeling that someone is trying to help him. Little as the hope may be, it is what Herbert needs to get through the harrowing wait before he is set to be electrocuted. The way Herbert clings to hope gives Stevenson the courage and resolve to fight another losing battle.

By Chapter 11, Stevenson has started to see that just as a good legal defense allows his clients to hope, hope is necessary to his work as well. When Minnie expresses optimism about Walter's case, Stevenson stops himself from trying to temper it:

I wasn’t exactly sure how to manage the family’s expectations. I felt I was supposed to be the cautionary voice that prepared family members for the worst even while I urged them to hope for the best. It was a task that was growing in complexity as I handled more cases and saw the myriad ways that things could go wrong. But I was developing a maturing recognition of the importance of hopefulness in creating justice.

Cite this Quote

Stevenson has often thought of himself as the pragmatic and sometimes cynical expert in his clients' cases. He wants them to hope, but he always fears that they will be disappointed. The more cases he argues, the more he sees "the myriad ways that things could go wrong." Still, even he is beginning to find that hope is the thing that keeps him going. Without hope, everyone might stop striving to "create justice" and would instead give in to despair that there is no better world ahead.

By the time Herbert calls the EJI, his execution is scheduled in 30 days. Legal processes move slowly, so this leaves little room for Stevenson to usher the case through the red tape of the appeals process, let alone build a convincing argument for the sentencing to be overturned. What's more, Stevenson has just lost two cases that ended in horrific executions for his clients. At first, he turns Herbert down: he has neither the time nor the emotional resources to take on such a difficult case.

Stevenson instantly feels ashamed of the "bureaucratic demurrals" he offered to Herbert over the phone, and he is relieved that Herbert calls him back. At first, Stevenson seems focused on redeeming himself through a more human followup conversation. However, it becomes "impossible for [Stevenson] to say no" once Herbert explains what his help would mean.  "I have twenty-nine days left," Herbert says, "and I don't think I can make it if there is no hope at all. Just say you'll do something and let me have some hope." Stevenson realizes that arguing Herbert's case is about more than winning. It is also about giving Herbert the feeling that someone is trying to help him. Little as the hope may be, it is what Herbert needs to get through the harrowing wait before he is set to be electrocuted. The way Herbert clings to hope gives Stevenson the courage and resolve to fight another losing battle.

By Chapter 11, Stevenson has started to see that just as a good legal defense allows his clients to hope, hope is necessary to his work as well. When Minnie expresses optimism about Walter's case, Stevenson stops himself from trying to temper it:

I wasn’t exactly sure how to manage the family’s expectations. I felt I was supposed to be the cautionary voice that prepared family members for the worst even while I urged them to hope for the best. It was a task that was growing in complexity as I handled more cases and saw the myriad ways that things could go wrong. But I was developing a maturing recognition of the importance of hopefulness in creating justice.

Cite this Quote

Stevenson has often thought of himself as the pragmatic and sometimes cynical expert in his clients' cases. He wants them to hope, but he always fears that they will be disappointed. The more cases he argues, the more he sees "the myriad ways that things could go wrong." Still, even he is beginning to find that hope is the thing that keeps him going. Without hope, everyone might stop striving to "create justice" and would instead give in to despair that there is no better world ahead.

Joe initially admitted to burglary but claimed that he did not assault anyone. His accuser could not even identify him, other than that she remembered her assailant being Black. The speed of Joe's conviction suggests that the jury may have been biased, but it is also clear that he had ineffective counsel. Even though his lawyer lost their job, Joe's conviction and life sentence remained legally valid.

As a motif, incompetent lawyers like Joe's help Stevenson challenge the idea that just because someone has been convicted of a crime, they have been "proven" guilty or deserve the punishment they have received. The legal system purports to be fair, but Stevenson shows that unfair trials may in fact be the norm and not the exception. Corrupt prosecutors hide exculpatory evidence from defense lawyers far more routinely than most people know. Even worse, far too many defense lawyers fail to take their clients' defenses seriously and present all the exculpatory evidence that is available to them. Stevenson's office is overwhelmed with requests for assistance from inmates whose initial trials were conducted with little regard to their rights as defendants. However, because the court system is overly confident in its ability to be fair, these inmates face an uphill battle to get their sentences reduced.

The woman instantly recognizes Stevenson as someone else who has committed his life to helping the helpless. She calls them both "stonecatchers," a title that, as Stevenson explains, alludes to a Christian parable about mercy. In the story, Jesus tells his followers that before throwing stones at sinners, they should consider whether they themselves have always behaved perfectly. Stevenson and this woman are surrounded by people throwing stones, heedless of this lesson. The woman recognizes how tired Stevenson is from catching stones before they can hit their targets.

While Stevenson is resting against her shoulder, the woman tells him that he needs to sing "sorrow songs" to cope with the ongoing struggle of catching stones. W.E.B. Du Bois coined the term "sorrow songs" in The Souls of Black Folk (a foundational work of sociology) to describe a genre of soulful vocal music developed by enslaved Black people as they labored on American plantations. Often religious and sometimes called "spirituals," these songs were a defiant expression of enslaved people's humanity under the most dehumanizing of conditions. Sometimes the songs were a way for enslaved people to pass messages to one another in code. The songs were instrumental in facilitating escape, rebellion, and forbidden relationships. Sometimes, though, the songs' only use was to express or cope with the experience of enslavement. Many of the songs that Stevenson hears his clients and others singing throughout the book were originally "sorrow songs." When a client is on his way to be executed in the most cruel and humiliating way, all he wants is a song for comfort.

One way to read the musical motif in Stevenson's book is as a reminder that mass incarceration of Black Americans is intimately linked to the system of slavery. These two systems are so disturbingly similar that they have the same soundscape. By invoking Du Bois's term for sorrow songs, the woman in this passage invites the reader to connect the motif with Du Bois's larger project in The Souls of Black Folk. Du Bois wrote his book in response to racist claims that Black Americans were unworthy of full citizenship because, supposedly, they were incapable of producing their own art and culture. Du Bois urges White readers especially to see sorrow songs as an artistic tradition that is just as legitimate and culturally significant as Western classical music. Essentially, he defines the genre of sorrow songs to prove that Black people are fully developed humans.

In light of Du Bois's musical project, it is apparent that sorrow songs connect Stevenson's clients not only to the institutional history they can never seem to escape, but also to the culture their communities have created and sustained themselves on through generations of oppression. They are making and appreciating art and culture, even and especially on death row. Stevenson thus uses music to show the reader that incarcerating a person or condemning them to die cannot make them less human.