Abstract

Bryan Stevenson’s Just Mercy, which is part legal history and part memoir, arrives at a moment when the tides may be turning in US criminal justice. Stevenson is a singular catalyst in the emergence of a movement against mass imprisonment, and the topics he is focused on are central to the prospect of lasting systemic reform. In his work as litigator, professor, and public figure, Stevenson has helped to usher in a new common sense that far-reaching reforms to US criminal justice are both required and imminent. Stevenson’s work becomes all the more significant when we consider the scope of change that structural reform requires. He has helped to draw the US Supreme Court away from a stance of extreme deference to legislative judgment in non-capital sentencing review – a meaningful shift in the direction of legal limits on the politics of tough punishment. This review contextualizes the publication of Just Mercy as a component of Stevenson’s legal and cultural strategies aimed at consolidating the reform movement against US mass imprisonment.

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