In this moving work of nonfiction, Bryan Stevenson, the founder of the Equal Justice Initiative recounts his work as a lawyer on one of his first cases, that of trying to free Walter McMillian from Alabama's death row. McMillian had been unjustly accused, tried, and sentenced to death for the death of white woman in his town even though he had been at his home working on his car with a friend during a fish fry at which there were numerous witnesses to his presence. Throughout the book, it becomes apparent that McMillian was used as a scapegoat since the citizens of the town were anxious to find the murderer and there was impropriety on the part of the sheriff, the D.A., and others. Stevenson also clearly shows how deeply racism is entrenched in the "justice" system of Alabama and points out the irony of a black man in Monroeville being unjustly accused and imprisoned for a crime in a town that is intensely proud of being known as the home of Harper Lee, author of To Kill a Mockingbird. Stevenson intersperses chapters about McMillian with other recent cases of racial injustice as well as cases involving children serving life sentences and the mentally ill serving cruel and unusual punishments. This is a important work that exposes the injustice still found in our legal system.
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