St Edward's Academic Review 2025

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Racial Injustice in the American Criminal System

Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption is a memoir written by Bryan Stevenson, a lawyer and founder of the Equal Justice Initiative. The memoir explores Stevenson’s experience as a lawyer fighting for justice in the broken justice system of the United States. Published in 2014, the memoir narrates true stories of individuals who Stevenson represented, particularly focusing on the cases of racial injustice and wrongfully convicted death row inmates of Alabama in the 1980s. Stevenson’s memoir addresses these systemic injustices and sheds light on the realities faced by marginalised communities within the US criminal justice system (Habtehans, 2023). The memoir continues to resonate with readers, shedding light on the need for change. What decisions were made in adapting Bryan Stevenson’s 2014 memoir Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption to Destin Daniel Cretton’s 2019 film Just Mercy , and how did these choices influence the portrayal of the criminal justice system? By Savannah Orchard

Introduction

the memoir does, however this individualised approach creates more of an emotional connection to a few characters – Bryan, Herbert, and Walter – by centring the story predominately around them. The second area of focus will be how systemic racism in the criminal justice system is portrayed differently in the text and the film. The text uses language, description of the historical context, and legal analysis to show how racial bias is integrated into the legal justice system. In comparison, the film uses visual techniques to show racial bias in the legal justice system and to create an emotional response of empathy and indignation from the viewer. Finally, the third area of focus will be the choice of ending for the film and how this compares to the ending of the memoir. While the film’s ending focuses on Walter McMillan and utilises techniques of cinematic closure, the memoir deals with a wider range of individuals and ends on a more pessimistic note.

In 2019, Destin Daniel Cretton brought Stevenson’s memoir to the screens with the film adaption. Cretton, co-writing the screenplay with Andrew Lanham, expressed his personal connection to the narrative, stating ‘I was never expecting a book about incarceration and slavery would leave me feeling so connected to humanity and inspired to get involved.’ Cretton continues, ‘I immediately wanted to do whatever I could to help tell his story’ (Koseluk, 2020). This essay will explore the question of what decisions were made in adapting Stevenson’s memoir to Destin Daniel Cretton’s film and explores the implications of these choices on the portrayal of the criminal justice system. Transformation from literature to a film is a process that requires critical shaping of the narrative, character and thematic developments. The first point to be explored is the difference in narrative focus in the adaptation. The time constraints of the film means that it cannot provide the same level of depth for multiple character narratives as