In a recent col­umn in the New York Times, Nicholas Kristof high­light­ed the work of Bryan Stevenson (pic­tured), refer­ring to him as America’s Nelson Mandela.” Stevenson, the founder of the Equal Justice Initiative in Alabama, has focused his career on rep­re­sent­ing indi­gent defen­dants, espe­cial­ly those on death row through­out the south. In his new book, Just Mercy, Stevenson tells the sto­ry of rep­re­sent­ing and even­tu­al­ly win­ning the exon­er­a­tion of Walter McMillian, a black man unjust­ly con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death in 1988 for the mur­der of a white woman in Alabama. Kristof asked Stevenson if such a bla­tant and racial­ly tinged mis­car­riage of jus­tice” is less com­mon today. Stevenson said, If any­thing, because of the tremen­dous increase in peo­ple incar­cer­at­ed, I’m con­fi­dent that we have more inno­cent peo­ple in prison today than 25 years ago.”

(N. Kristof, When Whites Just Don’t Get It, Part 3,” New York Times, October 11, 2014; pho­to: James Davidson). See Race and Innocence.

Citation Guide