Acclaimed justice advocate Bryan Stevenson to appear Dec. 14 in Milton
Bryan Stevenson, a nationally renowned criminal justice advocate, founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, and author of "Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption," will appear from 5 to 7 p.m., Sunday, Dec.14, at the Eagle's Nest Fellowship Church, 26633 Zion Church Road, Milton.
A Milton native, Stevenson has been representing capital defendants and death row prisoners in the Deep South since 1985 and has gained national acclaim for his work challenging bias against the poor and minorities in the criminal justice system. The event, which is free and open to the public, is sponsored by The Community. Browseabout Books will have copies of "Just Mercy" available for purchase, and there will be a book signing after the lecture.
Stevenson grew up poor, in a rural part of Milton. His grandfather was murdered in a Philadelphia housing project when he was a teenager. That event, and others in which relatives or friends became crime victims, sparked Stevenson’s interest in justice. He says, "It reinforced for me the primacy of responding to the conditions of hopelessness and despair that create crime.” Stevenson graduated from Cape Henlopen High School and eventually went on to Harvard, where he earned both a master's in public policy and a law degree. He is now a professor at New York University School of Law and has received numerous awards, including the MacArthur Foundation Genius Grant and 14 honorary doctoral degrees.
After Stevenson graduated from Harvard Law School, he started the Equal Justice Initiative, a law practice dedicated to defending some of America’s most rejected and marginalized people, driven by the belief that a society is ultimately judged by how it treats its most vulnerable members. Among the first cases he took on was that of Walter McMillian, a black man from "To Kill a Mockingbird" author Harper Lee’s hometown of Monroeville, Ala., who was sentenced to die for a notorious murder he insisted he didn’t commit. The case changed Stevenson’s life. "Just Mercy" follows the battle to free McMillian before the state executes him, while also stepping back to tell the stories of other men, women, and even children, who found themselves at the mercy of a system often incapable of showing it.
Over the past three decades, Stevenson has assisted in securing relief for dozens of condemned prisoners, advocated for poor people, and developed community-based reform litigation aimed at improving the administration of criminal justice. In a TED Talk, Stevenson said: “I…believe that in many parts of this country, and certainly in many parts of this globe, that the opposite of poverty is not wealth…I actually think, in too many places, the opposite of poverty is justice.”
Many of Stevenson’s clients are kids serving life imprisonment without parole - 250,000 incarcerated people in America are in prison for offenses they committed when they were children. “Close to 3,000 children in the United States have been sentenced to die in prison as a result of life imprisonment without parole sentences,” says Stevenson. “Some were 13 years of age at the time of their alleged offenses. The United States is the only country in the world that imposes these kinds of sentences on children this young.”
Stevenson has dedicated his career to helping the poor, the incarcerated, and the condemned. “We have a criminal justice system that treats you better if you are rich and guilty than if you’re poor and innocent,” says Stevenson. “I regard compassion and mercy as essential in achieving true justice. Without a willingness to understand the story behind the act, we risk becoming merciless and abusive. I’m persuaded that our abuse of the marginalized will just create more despair, anguish and violence, so I want to talk about ‘just mercy.’”
"Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption" will be available for sale for $28 at the Dec. 14 event. The book has received outstanding reviews and is on the New York Times Best Seller List.
