Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson, lawyer and founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, provided insights into his work defending innocent men and women convicted and sentenced to the death penalty in the American prison system. The experiences documented in the book showed us the failure of our legal system to provide for those who lack the economic, social, or political resources to gain equal justice in the courts of our nation, particularly in the South. While some of the details were emotionally difficult to read, our discussion helped us gain some hope, knowing that there are those such as Stevenson who are willing to fight the battles to get falsely convicted prisoners exonerated. His admonition to his readers to develop a proximity to those who are disadvantaged, to understand what produces these unequal judicial outcomes, made an impact on us all.
Our next book will be The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien. Here is a link to a review from The New York Times. We will meet Wednesday, February 6 in Room 115 of the Richardson Library. Remember that we now start our group at 11 am. We gather at 11, with discussion from 11:30 to 12:30, so please bring your brown bag lunch! For further information contact Kathryn DeGraff or Helen Marlborough.
We will continue to review the titles on our list for consideration for upcoming discussions. Please let Kathryn, Helen, or anyone else in the group, if you have a favorite book you would like to share with your DES colleagues. As you can tell from the posts, we are interested in a wide range of fiction and non fiction. We enjoy our sessions thoroughly and always have room for more people and more insights.
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