Systemic Power, Oppression, and Dehumanization Theme Analysis

Stevenson’s stories detail how legal structures—which are meant to ensure that all Americans are treated fairly—can contribute to the systemic oppression of marginalized groups, such as African Americans, women, the poor, and the disabled. By favoring individuals and groups who have more power, the criminal justice system perpetuates a cycle of vulnerability, poverty, and racial inequality in the United States. Stevenson demonstrates this claim through historical research, personal anecdotes, and political analysis, and his moral reflections suggest that such abuses of the justice system dehumanize both the victims and the perpetrators of oppression.

While Stevenson discusses many of his clients’ cases in order to demonstrate the failures of the justice system, his primary case study is that of Walter McMillian. McMillian, a black man who was wrongfully convicted of murder and sentenced to death, faced obstacles including incompetent court-appointed lawyers, political corruption, racial prejudice and profiling, and media sensationalism. His case is used in Just Mercy to demonstrate the myriad ways in which the legal system can deliberately betray those it is meant to protect, and the fact that justice is not immune from individual corruption and cruelty.

McMillian’s case, like all the other case studies in the book, is meant to personalize the experience of discrimination and miscarriage of justice in order to help readers understand the tremendous individual suffering that results from abuses of power. Stevenson often refers to the “collateral consequences” of the penal system: McMillian not only lost years of his life from his false conviction, but he also lost his reputation, his mental and physical health, his business, and his family’s limited financial resources. The case studies in the book are also meant to demonstrate the larger forces that structure the American justice system. McMillian’s case, for example, illustrates the all-too-common phenomenon of an innocent black man being blamed for a crime against a white woman. Other case studies point out that the prisons are full of populations that American society would rather criminalize than provide resources for: the poor, the mentally ill, and victims of trauma, for example. Rather than committing collective resources to social problems or empathizing with people from marginalized groups, the justice system scapegoats people who are often victims themselves.

Furthermore, Stevenson demonstrates that this problem is not isolated to the present day. The systematic oppression enacted by the justice system has direct roots in inhumane institutions that date back to slavery. Like slavery, many legal and judicial structures have the direct or indirect result of limiting the power of African Americans and separating out poor and minority populations from whites. For example, poll taxes, which were used in the Jim Crow era to prevent African Americans from voting, have now been replaced by laws barring inmates and convicted felons (who are disproportionately black) from voting. Stevenson shows how seemingly-innocuous legal phenomena like preemptory strikes in jury selection, mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent crimes, or the overburdening of court-appointed attorneys results in a system of discrimination and oppression reminiscent of the slavery and Jim Crow eras. Slavery, segregation, and mass incarceration, Stevenson argues, are transhistorical manifestations of the same phenomenon: racism.

Above all, Stevenson wants readers to understand that the abuses of the criminal justice system aren’t limited to racist judges, vindictive prosecutors, or incompetent police officers: the structure and trends of the American judicial system reflect American values and society overall, and thus all Americans are implicated in the problems that Stevenson describes in Just Mercy. When a society collectively dehumanizes certain groups and individuals, that society loses its own humanity. It’s everybody’s responsibility, whether or not they are directly involved with criminal justice, to educate themselves about the problems and work to change systemic abuses however they can.