Just Mercy: a Story of Justice and Redemption, by Bryan Stevenson

This compelling memoir, published in 2014, is a searing look at our system of justice. Author Bryan Stevenson, graduate of a small Christian college and of Harvard Law School, has devoted his life to victims of some of the gaping flaws in our justice system. The exoneration, through DNA evidence, of men sentenced to death has alerted us all to the flaws-which turn out to infect our system at every level: misconduct by police, defense attorneys, prosecuting attorneys, and judges.

Stevenson, eschewing the big money that was waiting for him, began his legal career at a legal aid non-profit in Georgia, then shifted to Montgomery, Alabama, where he founded the Equal Justice Initiative.

The main narrative thread of his memoir is his efforts to free Walter McMillian, a black man convicted of the murder of a white woman. The jury recommended a life sentence. The judge-Robert E. Lee Key­ converted it to a death sentence. He was also the judge who presided over Stevenson's early attempts to overturn the conviction. McMillian's alibi was rock solid. He was at an all-day fish fry at his own home, attested to by multiple witnesses, at the time of the murder. The sheriff arrested him anyway, possible because McMillian was in an affair with a white woman. The sheriff coerced two other prisoners to give perjured testimony against McMllian. The prosecution withheld exculpatory evidence and systematically excluded black people from the jury. Appeals were fruitless. Only after 60 Minutes aired an expose did the Alabama Supreme Court grant a retrial, which Stevenson and McMillian won.

Shifting focus, Stevenson also remembers his efforts to bring justice to children sentenced to death or to life without parole