The #1 best seller 1 New York Times Just Mercy, written by Bryan Stevenson, is an emotional account of Bryan's career as a lawyer and co-founder of the 1980s Equal Justice Initiative. This novel traces Mr. Stevenson's life story, from growing up poor, to representing the poor of the South, to working with the falsely accused waiting on death row in Alabama. While this is a coda of justice and redemption, that doesn't mean there aren't problems that arise along the way. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay To begin, in Chapter 4: The Rugged Cross, one question begins to become clear immediately. Bryan Stevenson and Eva Ansley had finally opened a non-profit legal center for men and women on death row in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. This happened in February 1989. The purpose of opening this organization was to provide death row inmates with the high-quality legal services they needed free of charge. However, things quickly began to go downhill. They quickly began to lose staff, funding, and support. For example, the University of Alabama School of Law has decided to withdraw from its organization. This causes total devastation, “…the office we had opened in withdrew its support and promise of office space, and we discovered how difficult it was to find lawyers to come to Alabama and handle the death penalty in full time for less." more than $25,000 a year.” Without funding, support and staff, it is not possible to successfully establish this organization and provide adequate services to inmates. So, as time passed and nothing changed, they decided to move to Montgomery, Alabama, in hopes of getting the Equal Justice Initiative the funding and requirements they needed. After the transfer and a few inmates later, an African American Vietnam veteran named Herbert Richardson is introduced. Just like the others, he is on death row with only thirty days left until his execution, and he refuses to give up hope. While being treated at a New York veteran's hospital, he met a nurse who eventually became his girlfriend. However, after the breakup, she moved to Alabama and Mr. Richardson followed her there. He placed a bomb on her door anticipating that she would return to him for "protection". Although the ex-girlfriend and Herbert were not injured, the ex-girlfriend's young niece took the device and shook it, thinking it was a watch, and was killed. Thus, Herbert Richardson was charged with murder and was represented by a lawyer who did not bring up any of his war-induced mental illness and past. Since the lawyer did not provide any of this evidence, this caused the jury to despise him even more. Since Mr. Richardson was already considered an outsider, the prosecutor sealed the deal with his final statement. In the courtroom, “…the prosecutor told the all-white jury in his closing argument that a sentence was appropriate because Herbert was “associated with the black Muslims of New York City” and deserved no mercy.” His attorney then denied his motion to appeal which caused Herbert to be immediately convicted and he was placed on death row eleven years later. Fair legal services were not provided to Mr Richardson and he was also later deemed evil by an all-white jury because of this. The criminal justice system did not fairly respect the rights and treatment of Herbert Richardson. Furthermore,,.