JUST MERCY is the true story of lawyer Bryan Stevenson's founding of the Equal Justice Initiative, a nonprofit law firm that focuses on exonerating or lightening the sentences of death row inmates, with the overall aim of eliminating the death penalty in America. Highlighted is the case of Walter McMillian, who sat on death row for years after being charged with a crime he clearly could not have committed.

This book should be required reading for anyone interested in racial and economic justice in America. Stevenson lays out all the tangled ways our legal system sets people up to fail - particularly young black and brown folks. It's packed with stories of blatant miscarriages of justice and of people who are condemned for life because of a mistake that would have earned them a short sentence if not for their particular location, mandatory minimums, or other circumstances.

I did find the telling of some of the secondary cases to be a bit jumbled. That may simply be reflective of how many complex cases Stevenson's firm handled, but as someone who doesn't read a whole lot of nonfiction the jumping around in time felt a little disjointed to me. Still, the barrage of cases shows just how many issues come into play when talking about capital punishment and how inhumane and fallible the practice is.