I went into watching Just Mercy expecting the setting of the film to be during the 1960s, but I was surprised to find out that the leading story of attorney Bryan Stevenson assisting an innocent man, Walter McMillan, in escaping death row played out in real life during the late 1980s and early 1990s. I searched my memory banks and could not remember hearing of his story at all.
Bryan Stevenson is the real-life author and attorney who dedicated his life toward freeing inmates wrongfully convicted on death row, and other serious issues related to ending mass incarceration and working toward stopping the placement of children as young as 13 and 14 in the adult population and on death row.
Just Mercy shows a young Bryan, played by Michael B. Jordan, who has graduated from Harvard and dedicated his life to serving the poor and incarcerated, at no cost through his Equal Justice Imitative. The film follows three men who are in cells near each other. Each with a sentence to die on death row.
Click here to read full article and view the trailer
