Hope

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption (2014)

  I remain the Executive Director of EJI, which is a great privilege. With my amazing colleagues at EJI, I continue to represent people on death row, children prosecuted as adults, and incarcerated women, men, and children who have been wrongly convicted or unfairly sentenced. In February 2019, we won a landmark ruling from the United States Supreme Court banning the execution of condemned people who become incompetent as a result of dementia or neurological disease. I continue to meet stonecatchers along the way who inspire me and make me believe that we can do better for the accused, convicted, and condemned among us—and that all of us can do better for one another. The work continues. In memory of Alice Golden Stevenson, my mom Acknowledgments [image file=image_rsrc32M.jpg] Iwant to thank the hundreds of accused, convicted, and imprisoned men, women, and children with whom I have worked and who have taught me so much about hope, justice, and mercy. I’m especially appreciative of and humbled by the people who appear in this book, victims and survivors of violence, criminal justice professionals, and those who have been condemned to unimaginably painful spaces and yet have shown tremendous courage and grace. All the names of people who appear in these pages are real with the exception of just a few whose privacy and security needed to be protected. I’m extremely grateful to Chris Jackson, my extraordinary editor, for his thoughtful guidance and kind assistance. I feel very, very fortunate to have worked with an editor as insightful and generous. I’m also deeply thankful to Cindy Spiegel and Julie Grau whose tremendous support and feedback has genuinely inspired me in ways I never imagined. One of my great joys with this project has been the privilege of working with and learning from all my new friends at Spiegel & Grau and Random House who have been so wonderfully encouraging. I want to also thank Sharon Steinerman at New York University School of Law for her excellent research assistance for this project. All my work is made possible by the exceptional staff of the Equal Justice Initiative, each of whom fearlessly contributes to the cause of justice every day with enough hope and humility to make me believe that we can do the things that must be done to serve the least of these. I want to especially thank Aaryn Urell and Randy Susskind for feedback and editing. Additionally, I’m grateful to Eva Ansley and Evan Parzych for research assistance. Finally, I cannot say enough about Doug Abrams, agent extraordinaire, who persuaded me to take on this project. Without his invaluable guidance, encouragement, and friendship, this book would not have been possible.

• From Four Days to Glory: Wrestling with the Soul of the American Heartland (2005)

  soundly beaten by Beatty. There are reasonable explanations for this, among them the fact that Jay didn’t rest after the State Tournament as he should have but rather went off to compete in a national tournament, but there is no denying the result. The Iowa diehards crow, seeing in the final score a vindication of Jim Zalesky’s decision not to pursue Jay more vigorously; it looks to them like Beatty was the one they should have been coveting all along. The two may eventually see each other, be it at a national tournament or around the NCAA. Maybe Jay should make a printout of some of the message-board sentiments, just in case. Then again, it is possible that Jay won’t be spending much time worrying about it. He is already drifting ahead, mentally, to Brands and Virginia Tech, to becoming a national power as a wrestler, one who beats other nationally ranked wrestlers. He is most likely to redshirt his freshman year, spend it in the wrestling room with the super-charged Brands getting ready to be an NCAA ass- kicker. Jay might well be too busy having a wrestling career to worry about having one. It was last week that Carol Borschel took note of the fact that no one had stopped by to decorate the family’s lawn or front door, curious only because cheerleaders had done so during the first couple of years that Jay headed for the State Tournament. “I guess they decided not to this year,” she remarked to Sandy McDonough, mother of the 103-pounder. “Oh, they did Matt’s,” Sandy replied. As it happened, the cheerleaders went to the wrong house, in a different part of town, the evening they set out to decorate Jay’s lawn and door. Four straight trips to the State Tournament, and Jay still finds himself unknown by his own school—even by people who are trying to love him. It’d be funny if it weren’t true. “That’s pretty good, though,” Jay says from the couch, a real chuckle coming from him. On second thought, maybe it’s funny because it’s true. The really great ones, deep down, just don’t give a damn. Dan LeClere dealt with his depression and got past it, and he dealt with his family dynamic and never let it slow his drive. He suffered with fairly good humor his week of inordinate attention in Des Moines, but the fact of the matter is, he was relieved

• From Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption (2014)

  I was trying to shake off the dark feeling that the morning’s events had conjured when the officers brought Walter into the courtroom. Because there was no jury, the judge had not permitted me to give him street clothes to wear, so Walter was wearing his prison uniform. They allowed him to be in the courtroom without handcuffs but had insisted on keeping his ankles shackled. Michael and I conferred briefly about the order of witnesses as the rest of McMillian’s family and supporters slowly filed through the metal detector, past the dog, and into the courtroom. Despite the State’s early-morning maneuvers and the bad omen of the dog and Mrs. Williams, we had another good day in court. Evidence from the state mental health workers who had dealt with Myers after he initially refused to testify in the first trial and was sent to the Taylor Hardin Secure Medical Facility for evaluation confirmed Myers’s testimony from the day before. Dr. Omar Mohabbat explained that Myers had told him then “that the police had framed him to accept the penalty for the murder case that he is accused of or ‘to testify’ that ‘the man did.’ ” Mohabbat reported that Myers “categorically denied having anything to do with the alleged crime. He claimed, ‘I don’t know the name of this girl, I don’t know the time of the alleged crime, I don’t know the date of the alleged crime, I don’t know the place of the alleged crime.’ ” Mohabbat testified that Myers had told him, “They told me to say what they wanted me to say.” Evidence from other doctors further confirmed this testimony. Dr. Norman Poythress from Taylor Hardin explained that Myers had told him that “his prior ‘confessions’ are bogus and were coerced out of him by the police through keeping him physically and psychologically isolated.” We presented evidence from Taylor Hardin staffer Dr. Kamal Nagi, who said that Myers had told him of “another murder that occurred in 1986 where a girl was shot in the Laundromat. [He] said that the ‘police and also my lawyer want me to say that I had driven these people to the Laundromat and they shot the girl, but I won’t do it.’ ” Myers also told Nagi, “They threatened me. They want me to say what they want to hear and if I don’t then they tell me, ‘You’re going to the electric chair.’ ” We had evidence from a fourth doctor to whom Myers confided that he was being pressured to give false testimony against Walter McMillian. Dr. Bernard Bryant testified that Myers told him “he did not commit the crime and that at the time he was incarcerated for the crime, he was threatened and harassed by the local police authorities into confessing he committed a crime.”

• From Heptaméron (1559)

  seek my repose with as much solicitude as you took to deprive me of it. From that very hour we interchanged promises of marriage which were sealed with a ring. It seems to me, then, madam, that you wrong me in calling me wicked. The great and perfect friendship which subsists between the bastard and myself would have given me occasion to do wrong if I had been so disposed, yet we have never gone further than kissing, it being my conviction that God would do me the grace to obtain my father's consent before the consummation of our marriage. I have done nothing against God or against my conscience. I have waited till the age of thirty to see what you and my father would do for me ; and my youth has been passed in such chastity and virtue that no one in the world can justly cast the least reproach upon me in that respect. Finding myself on the decline, and without the hope of obtaining a husband of my own rank, reason determined me to take one according to my taste, not for the lust of the eyes, for, as you know, he whom I have chosen is not comely ; nor yet for that of the flesh, smce there has been no consummation ; nor for the pride and ambition of this life, for he is poor, and of little preferment ; but I have had regard purely and simply to the virtue and good qualities he possesses, as to which all the world is constrained to do him justice, and to the great love he has for me, which affords me the hope of enjoying quiet and contentment with him. After having maturely considered the good and the evil which might result to me, I took the course which ap- peared to me the best, and finally resolved, after two years' examination, to end my life with him ; and this I so fully resolved that no torments which could be inflicted upon me, nor death itself, could make me change my purpose. So, madam, I beseech you to excuse in me 2o6 THE HEPTAMERON OF THE [Nmrl %\ what is highly excusable, as you very well know, and leave me to enjoy the peace and quiet I expect to find with him." The queen, unable to make any reasonable reply to language so resolute and so true, could only renew her passionate chiding and abuse, and bursting into tears, "Wretch," she said, "instead of humbling yourself, and testifying repentance for the fault you have committed, you speak with audacity, and, instead of blushing, you do not so much as shed one tear ; thereby giving plain proof of your obstinacy and hardness of heart. But if the king and your father do as I would have them, they will put you in a place where you will be constrained to hold other language."

• From Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption (2014)

  “The defendant’s motion to change venue is granted,” the judge ruled. When the judge suggested that it be moved to a neighboring county so that witnesses wouldn’t have far to travel, Chestnut remained hopeful. Almost all of the bordering counties had fairly large African American populations: Wilcox County was 72 percent black; Conecuh was 46 percent black; Clarke County was 45 percent black; Butler 42 percent; Escambia was 32 percent black. Only affluent Baldwin County to the south, with its beautiful Gulf of Mexico beaches, was atypical, with an African American population of just 9 percent. The judge took very little time deciding where the trial should be moved. “We’ll go to Baldwin County.” Chestnut and Boynton immediately complained, but the judge reminded them it was their motion. When they sought to withdraw the motion, the judge said he couldn’t authorize a trial in a community where so many people had formed opinions about the accused. The case would be tried in Bay Minette, the seat of Baldwin County. The change of venue was disastrous for Walter. Chestnut and Boynton knew there would be very few, if any, black jurors. They also understood that while jurors from Baldwin County might be less personally connected to Ronda Morrison and her family, it was an extremely conservative county that had made even less progress leaving behind the racial politics of Jim Crow than its neighbors. Given what he’d heard from other death row prisoners about all-white juries, Walter worried about the venue change as well. But he still put his faith in this fact: No one could hear the evidence and believe that he committed this crime. He just didn’t believe that a jury, black or white, could convict him on the nonsensical story told by Ralph Myers—not when he had an unquestionable alibi with close to a dozen witnesses. The February trial was postponed. Once again, Ralph Myers was having second thoughts. After months in the county jail, away from death row, Myers again realized he didn’t want to implicate himself in a murder he had not committed. He waited until the morning that the trial was set to begin before he told investigators that he could not testify because what they wanted him to say was not true. He tried to wrangle for more favorable treatment but decided that there was no punishment he was willing to accept for a murder he hadn’t committed.

• From The Swimming-Pool Library (1988)

  On the train home I carried on reading Valmouth. It was an old grey and white Penguin Classic that James had lent me, the pages stiff and foxed, with a faint smell of lost time. Wet-bottomed wine glasses had left mauve rings over the sketch of the author by Augustus John and the price, 3/6, which appeared in a red square on the cover. Nonetheless, I was enjoined to take especial care of the book, which also contained Prancing Nigger and Concerning the Eccentricities of Cardinal Pirelli. James had a mania for Firbank, and it was only out of his love for me that he had let me take away this apparently undistinguished old paperback, which bore on its flyleaf the absurd signature ‘O. de V. Green’. James held the average Firbank-lover in contempt, and professed a very serious attitude towards his favourite writer. I had long deferred reading him in the childishly stubborn way that one resists all keen and repeated recommendations, and had imagined him until now to be a supremely frivolous and silly author. I was surprised to find how difficult, witty and relentless he was. The characters were flighty and extravagant in the extreme, but the novel itself was evidently as tough as nails. I knew I would not begin to grasp it fully until a second or third reading, but what was clear so far was that the inhabitants of the balmy resort of Valmouth found the climate so kind that they lived to an immense age. Lady Parvula de Panzoust (a name I knew already from James’s reapplication of it to a member of the Corry) was hoping to establish some rapport with the virile young David Tooke, a farm boy, and was seeking the help of Mrs Yajñavalkya, a black masseuse, to set up a meeting. ‘He’s awfully choice,’ Mrs Yaj assured the centenarian grande dame. Much of the talk was a kind of highly inflected nonsense, but it gave the unnerving impression that on deeper acquaintance it would all turn out to be packed with fleeting and covert meaning. Mrs Yaj herself spoke in a wonderful black pidgin, prinked out with more exotic turns of phrase. ‘O Allah la Ilaha!’ she reassured the anxious Lady Parvula. ‘Shall I tell you vot de Yajñavalkya device is? Vot it has been dis thousand and thousand ob year? It is bjopti. Bjopti! And vot does bjopti mean? It means discretion. S-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-sh!’ It was such a long ‘Sh!’ that I found myself quietly vocalising it to see what its effect would be. ‘Quiet, Damian,’ the woman opposite me said to her little boy. ‘Gentleman’s trying to read.’

• From Four Days to Glory: Wrestling with the Soul of the American Heartland (2005)

  in his wrestlers’ talent and his own ability to harness it, even if it meant a season that, in some respects, would be invisible. His incoming freshmen would be able to train with Brands and the Hokies team, and they could enter national competitions as “unattached” wrestlers; but what Brands’s decision meant was that none of them could officially represent Virginia Tech in an NCAA dual or tournament. On the team scoreboard, in the context of the 2005–06 season, they would not exist. To Brands, this was a necessary sacrifice—and a sacrifice it was. Absent his incoming class, he didn’t have the overall talent on the mat to compete on a team level, and after having lost some seniors and chased off a few holdovers from the previous Virginia Tech squad, he was almost certain to run out of decent wrestlers before he ran out of ambition. Without the freshmen, the Hokies, not good enough and not deep enough, were going to make loud sucking noises as a group for a year. Brands, a win-or-go-home obsessive, was going to have to deal with it. And he would, because Brands understood the bargain he was striking. In exchange for possibly losing every dual match his team had all season, Brands was giving himself and the program a chance to be very, very good in the winter of 2007 and for the three seasons beyond that. Brands wasn’t thinking about mere improvement; he was thinking about national contention for a program that had produced four All-Americans in its previous 84 years of existence. He was going to come roaring out of the gate a year from now with this group, Borschel and LeClere and Metcalf and Slaton and Leet. His wrestlers—by then they would be called “redshirt freshmen,” meaning they were in their second year of college but only their first year of NCAA athletic eligibility—were going to be ready in 2007 not just to wrestle, but to win. Virginia Tech suddenly was going to jump into the national spotlight, and Tom Brands was going to be the coach who had made that happen. It was worth the humiliation of sustained losing that might very well have to precede it. Brands had foreseen this possibility, and had said as much during the recruiting process, in conversations with Jim and Carol Borschel, and Doug and Mary LeClere, and Joey’s dad, Matt Shaver. Even the Metcalfs, who knew Brent initially had wanted to wrestle as a true freshman, came to see the value in keeping everybody together, training as a group and waiting for the fall of 2006 and winter of 2007 to debut in unison. It could be one of the great coming-out parties in college wrestling, but for it to happen, everyone had to agree to spend

• From Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption (2014)

  A review of the other factors set out above does not provide conclusive evidence that the witness, Ralph Meyers, perjured himself at the original trial. There is ample evidence that pressure has been brought to bear on Ralph Meyers since his trial testimony which could tend to discredit his recantation. There is absolutely no evidence in the trial record or the recantation testimony that places Ralph Meyers somewhere other than the scene of the crime at the time it was committed. This case having been remanded to the Court for a determination of whether there is evidence to support the theory that Ralph Meyers perjured himself at the original trial and this court having determined that there is insufficient evidence to support that theory, it is therefore ORDERED, ADJUDGED and DECREED that the trial testimony of Ralph Myers is not found to have been perjured testimony. Done this 19th day of May, 1992. THOMAS B. NORTON, JR. Circuit Judge While Chapman had suggested that Myers must have been pressured to recant, the district attorney presented no actual evidence to support that claim, which made the judge’s ruling hard to understand. I had advised Walter and his family that we would likely need to go to an appellate court for any real chance of relief, despite how positive everyone thought the hearing had been. I was optimistic about what our evidence might accomplish in the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals. We were now regularly arguing cases in front of that court. Following my first McMillian argument, we had filed almost two dozen death penalty appeals, and the court was starting to respond to our advocacy. We had won four reversals in death penalty cases in 1990, four more in 1991, and by the end of 1992, we’d won relief for another eight death row prisoners. The court frequently complained about being forced to order new trials or grant relief, but nonetheless ruled in our favor. In a few years, some of the appellate court judges would be attacked and replaced in partisan judicial elections by candidates who complained about the court’s rulings in death penalty cases. But we persisted and continued raising reversible errors in capital cases. We were pushing the court to enforce the law in these cases, and when they refused, we were having success getting the Alabama Supreme Court and federal courts to grant relief. Based on this recent experience, I thought we could win relief for McMillian on appeal. Even if the court was unwilling to rule that Walter was innocent and should be released, the withholding of exculpatory evidence was extreme enough that the court would have a hard time avoiding the case law requiring a new trial. Nothing could be assured, but I explained to Walter that we were only just now getting to a court where our claims would be seriously considered.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  Reply to Objection 2: As Augustine says (Enchiridion viii), “faith is about things, bad or good, past, present, or future, one’s own or another’s; whereas hope is only about good things, future and concerning oneself.” Hence it is possible for lifeless faith to be in the damned, but not hope, since the Divine goods are not for them future possible things, but far removed from them. Reply to Objection 3: Lack of hope in the damned does not change their demerit, as neither does the voiding of hope in the blessed increase their merit: but both these things are due to the change in their respective states. Whether there is certainty in the hope of a wayfarer?Objection 1: It would seem that there is no certainty in the hope of a wayfarer. For hope resides in the will. But certainty pertains not to the will but to the intellect. Therefore there is no certainty in hope. Objection 2: Further, hope is based on grace and merits, as stated above (Q[17], A[1]). Now it is impossible in this life to know for certain that we are in a state of grace, as stated above ([2456]FS, Q[112], A[5]). Therefore there is no certainty in the hope of a wayfarer. Objection 3: Further, there can be no certainty about that which may fail. Now many a hopeful wayfarer fails to obtain happiness. Therefore wayfarer’s hope has no certainty. On the contrary, “Hope is the certain expectation of future happiness,” as the Master states (Sent. iii, D, 26): and this may be gathered from 2 Tim. 1:12, “I know Whom I have believed, and I am certain that He is able to keep that which I have committed to Him.” I answer that, Certainty is found in a thing in two ways, essentially and by participation. It is found essentially in the cognitive power; by participation in whatever is moved infallibly to its end by the cognitive power. In this way we say that nature works with certainty, since it is moved by the Divine intellect which moves everything with certainty to its end. In this way too, the moral virtues are said to work with greater certainty than art, in as much as, like a second nature, they are moved to their acts by the reason: and thus too, hope tends to its end with certainty, as though sharing in the certainty of faith which is in the cognitive faculty. This suffices for the Reply to the First Objection. Reply to Objection 2: Hope does not trust chiefly in grace already received, but on God’s omnipotence and mercy, whereby even he that has not grace, can obtain it, so as to come to eternal life. Now whoever has faith is certain of God’s omnipotence and mercy.

• From Simply Jesus (2011)

  He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written: “The spirit of the Lord is upon me Because he has anointed me To tell the poor the good news. He has sent me to announce release to the prisoners And sight to the blind, To set the wounded victims free, To announce the year of God’s special favor.” He rolled up the scroll, gave it to the attendant, and sat down. All eyes in the synagogue were fixed on him. “Today,” he began, “this scripture is fulfilled in your own hearing.” (Luke 4:16–21) This is the message of forgiveness, all right, but it’s not just forgiveness for individuals who are physically or emotionally crippled as a result of their guilt, real or imagined. It’s a kind of corporate forgiveness, tapping into the ancient Jewish hope of the “jubilee,” the year when all debts would be forgiven, when slaves would be set free (Lev. 25). The jubilee is the sabbath of sabbaths. If, every seven years, there is to be a sabbatical year, in which the land lies fallow and people rest, the jubilee is the sabbatical of sabbaticals, seven times seven years, producing a great celebration of release, forgiveness, and rescue from all that has crippled human life. That’s what Jesus was announcing. American readers in particular ought to know this theme well, because part of Leviticus 25 (v. 10, in italics below) is inscribed on the famous Liberty Bell in Philadelphia: You shall count off seven weeks of years, seven times seven years, so that the period of seven weeks of years gives forty-nine years. Then you shall have the trumpet sounded loud; on the tenth day of the seventh month—on the day of atonement—you shall have the trumpet sounded throughout all your land. And you shall hallow the fiftieth year and you shall proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you: you shall return, every one of you, to your property and every one of you to your family. That fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you: you shall not sow, or reap the aftergrowth, or harvest the unpruned vines. For it is a jubilee; it shall be holy to you: you shall eat only what the field itself produces. (Lev. 25:8–12) Jesus’s hearers would have understood the Isaiah passage in this sense. They would have been eager to know how exactly he supposed these great prophecies would be fulfilled. As so often, however, Jesus’s message seems to be that they are being fulfilled—but not in the way people had imagined. Yes, God is taking charge. Yes, the great jubilee year is dawning, the time of release, of forgiveness. But it won’t work out the way they had expected.

• From Simply Jesus (2011)

  On the contrary. This is the sharp edge of what God is doing. Look at the texts and you’ll see. When God does the big things, the little people get drawn in too. Human systems often forget that, but God doesn’t. Read on in Isaiah 40: the God who comes in power and glory, who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, who glances down and sees the princes of the earth as so many grains of sand, is also the God who feeds his flock like a shepherd, gathers the lambs in his arms, and gently leads the mother sheep. Blessed are those who can see this, who can spot what’s going on, who are prepared to go with Jesus rather than with the princelings of the earth, even though what Jesus was doing wasn’t what they had expected. Tellingly, Jesus himself then goes on to compare John the Baptist and Herod Antipas. Jesus is too canny to do this directly; he refers to Antipas by means of the symbol Antipas himself had chosen for his coins. Jews weren’t supposed to make pictures of human faces, so they chose symbols instead. Antipas’s symbol was a particular kind of reed that grows beside the Sea of Galilee. So, asks Jesus, “What were you expecting to see when you went out into the desert? A reed wobbling in the wind?” In other words, “When you went off after John, were you looking for another ruler like the ones you’ve got already?” Surely not, he implies. He then repeats the question, coming a shade more into the open. “Well, then, what were you expecting to see? Someone dressed in silks and satins? If you want to see people like that you’d have to go to somebody’s royal palace.” Again, the expected answer is, “No, we’ve got people like that already, and we’re fed up with them. We want something else. We want God himself to be king.” “So,” Jesus presses the question, “what were you expecting to see? A prophet?” Someone announcing God’s rule? “Yes, and much more than a prophet.” He then quotes Malachi 3:1, where God promises to send his messenger ahead of him, to prepare the way. “All right,” he seems to say, “you were wanting God to be king—so you went looking for a prophet, hoping that he would be the one to tell you that it was happening at last. And you were right—he was. Since the time of John’s brief work, God’s kingdom has indeed been breaking in, even though the men of violence are trying to hijack it.” “So,” he concludes, “if you’ll believe it, he is Elijah, the one who was to come”—another reference to Malachi, this time to 4:5, where the messenger-in-advance is said to be Elijah himself. And then he adds, characteristically, “If you’ve got ears, then listen!”

• From Simply Jesus (2011)

  What about Jesus today? We omitted (deliberately) one of the other vital events that, in the New Testament, complete the story of Jesus. The resurrection is all about Jesus as the prototype of the new creation. The ascension is all about Jesus as the ruler of the new creation as it breaks into the world of the old. The second coming is all about Jesus as the coming Lord and judge who will transform the entire creation. And, in between resurrection and ascension, on the one hand, and the second coming, on the other, Jesus is the one who sends the Holy Spirit, his own Spirit, into the lives of his followers, so that he himself is powerfully present with them and in them, guiding them, directing them, and above all enabling them to bear witness to him as the world’s true Lord and work to make that sovereign rule a reality. This—the coming of the Spirit, the story of Pentecost as in Acts 2—is a vital part of the story of Jesus. Again, I and others have written a good deal about this. All we can do here is to summarize the main points in the light of what we’ve said about Jesus so far. The Acts of the Apostles is the New Testament book that is most obviously about what happens when the Spirit comes. It should be equally obvious that the Spirit enables Jesus’s followers to do and say things that the authorities, both Jewish and pagan, see as dangerous nonsense—just as they did with Jesus himself. When many people today think of the Holy Spirit, they think simply of personal spiritual experience (perhaps including “charismatic” gifts such as “speaking in tongues”) or powerfully effective spiritual gifts such as healing. These are there in Acts, to be sure. But the story line is not about the church discovering these gifts and simply enjoying them for their own sake. It is about the church living as a new community, giving allegiance to Jesus as Lord rather than to the kings and chief priests who rule the Jewish world or the emperor or magistrates who rule the non-Jewish world. “We must obey God,” declares Peter, “not human beings!” (Acts 5:29). We shouldn’t be surprised, then, at how it works out. Since the whole story of Jesus’s ascension and the Spirit’s arrival in Acts 1–2 is basically about Jesus as the new Temple (joining heaven and earth together) and the Spirit enabling the church itself to be an outpost of that new Temple (humans, creatures of earth, being indwelt by the very breath of heaven), the conflict focuses on temples: first, the Temple in Jerusalem (chap. 7), and later the temples in Athens (chap. 17) and Corinth (chap. 19), before coming back to the one in Jerusalem (chaps. 22–26). The underlying issues in Acts—provoked by the Spirit—are about the things that come together in the Temple, namely, God and power. Who is the true God?

• From Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption (2014)

  I’ve also represented people who have committed terrible crimes but nonetheless struggle to recover and to find redemption. I have discovered, deep in the hearts of many condemned and incarcerated people, the scattered traces of hope and humanity—seeds of restoration that come to astonishing life when nurtured by very simple interventions. Proximity has taught me some basic and humbling truths, including this vital lesson: Each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve ever done. My work with the poor and the incarcerated has persuaded me that the opposite of poverty is not wealth; the opposite of poverty is justice. Finally, I’ve come to believe that the true measure of our commitment to justice, the character of our society, our commitment to the rule of law, fairness, and equality cannot be measured by how we treat the rich, the powerful, the privileged, and the respected among us. The true measure of our character is how we treat the poor, the disfavored, the accused, the incarcerated, and the condemned. We are all implicated when we allow other people to be mistreated. An absence of compassion can corrupt the decency of a community, a state, a nation. Fear and anger can make us vindictive and abusive, unjust and unfair, until we all suffer from the absence of mercy and we condemn ourselves as much as we victimize others. The closer we get to mass incarceration and extreme levels of punishment, the more I believe it’s necessary to recognize that we all need mercy, we all need justice, and—perhaps—we all need some measure of unmerited grace. Chapter One [image file=image_rsrc32H.jpg] Mockingbird PlayersThe temporary receptionist was an elegant African American woman wearing a dark, expensive business suit—a well-dressed exception to the usual crowd at the Southern Prisoners Defense Committee (SPDC) in Atlanta, where I had returned after graduation to work full time. On her first day, I’d rambled over to her in my regular uniform of jeans and sneakers and offered to answer any questions she might have to help her get acclimated. She looked at me coolly and waved me away after reminding me that she was, in fact, an experienced legal secretary. The next morning, when I arrived at work in another jeans and sneakers ensemble, she seemed startled, as if some strange vagrant had made a wrong turn into the office. She took a beat to compose herself, then summoned me over to confide that she was leaving in a week to work at a “real law office.” I wished her luck. An hour later, she called my office to tell me that “Robert E. Lee” was on the phone. I smiled, pleased that I’d misjudged her; she clearly had a sense of humor. “That’s really funny.” “I’m not joking. That’s what he said,” she said, sounding bored, not playful. “Line two.” I picked up the line. “Hello, this is Bryan Stevenson. May I help you?”

• From Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption (2014)

  Chapman called Tate, Ikner, and Benson together shortly after the hearing and expressed his concerns. When he asked the local investigators to explain the contradictory evidence we had presented, he wasn’t impressed with what he heard. Not long after that, he formally asked ABI officials in Montgomery to conduct another investigation into the murder to confirm Mr. McMillian’s guilt. Chapman never informed us directly about the new investigation, even though for over two years we’d sought just such a re-examination of the evidence. When the new ABI investigators, Tom Taylor and Greg Cole, called me, I eagerly agreed to share case files and information. After meeting with them, I was even more hopeful about what might come out of the investigation. They both seemed like no-nonsense, experienced investigators who were interested in doing credible and reliable work. Within a few weeks, Taylor and Cole seemed to doubt that McMillian was guilty. They were not connected to any of the players in South Alabama. We gave them files, memoranda, and even some original evidence because we had nothing to hide. I was nervous that if we won a reversal and had to retry the case, we might be disadvantaged by disclosing so much information to state investigators—who would then be better prepared to smear or undermine our evidence—but I was still confident that any reasonable, honest investigation would reveal the absurdity of the charges against Walter. By January, six months had passed since we had filed our appeal at the Court of Criminal Appeals, and a ruling was due any week. That’s when Tom Taylor called and said that he and Cole wanted to meet with us again. We’d talked a few times during their investigation, but this time we’d be discussing their findings. When they arrived, Bernard and I sat down with them in my office and they wasted no time. “There is no way Walter McMillian killed Ronda Morrison.” Tom Taylor spoke plainly and directly. “We’re going to report to the attorney general, the district attorney, and anyone who asks that McMillian had nothing to do with either of these murders and is completely innocent.” I tried not to look as thrilled as I felt. I didn’t want to scare away this good news. “That’s terrific,” I said, trying to sound unsurprised. “I’m pleased to hear that and I have to say I’m extremely grateful that you’ve looked at the evidence in this case thoroughly and honestly.” “Well, confirming that McMillian had nothing to do with this wasn’t that hard,” Taylor replied. “Why would a drug kingpin live in the conditions he was living in and work fifteen hours a day cutting timber on difficult terrain? What we were told by local law enforcement about McMillian didn’t make much sense, and the story Myers told at trial definitely made no sense. I still can’t believe a jury ever convicted him.”

• From Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption (2014)

  The first time I met Ms. Parks, I sat on Ms. Durr’s front porch in Old Cloverdale, a residential neighborhood in Montgomery, and I listened to the three women talk for two hours. Finally, after watching me listen for all that time, Ms. Parks turned to me and sweetly asked, “Now, Bryan, tell me who you are and what you’re doing.” I looked at Ms. Carr to see if I had permission to speak, and she smiled and nodded at me. I then gave Ms. Parks my rap. “Yes, ma’am. Well, I have a law project called the Equal Justice Initiative, and we’re trying to help people on death row. We’re trying to stop the death penalty, actually. We’re trying to do something about prison conditions and excessive punishment. We want to free people who’ve been wrongly convicted. We want to end unfair sentences in criminal cases and stop racial bias in criminal justice. We’re trying to help the poor and do something about indigent defense and the fact that people don’t get the legal help they need. We’re trying to help people who are mentally ill. We’re trying to stop them from putting children in adult jails and prisons. We’re trying to do something about poverty and the hopelessness that dominates poor communities. We want to see more diversity in decision-making roles in the justice system. We’re trying to educate people about racial history and the need for racial justice. We’re trying to confront abuse of power by police and prosecutors—” I realized that I had gone on way too long, and I stopped abruptly. Ms. Parks, Ms. Carr, and Ms. Durr were all looking at me. Ms. Parks leaned back, smiling. “Ooooh, honey, all that’s going to make you tired, tired, tired.” We all laughed. I looked down, a little embarrassed. Then Ms. Carr leaned forward and put her finger in my face and talked to me just like my grandmother used to talk to me. She said, “That’s why you’ve got to be brave, brave, brave.” All three women nodded in silent agreement and for just a little while they made me feel like a young prince. —

• From Collected Essays (1998)

  And at the center of this dreadful storm, this vast confusion, stand the black people of this nation, who must now share the fate of a nation that has never accepted them, to which they were brought in chains. Well, if this is so, one has no choice but to do all in one's power to change that fate, and at no matter what risk-evi ction, imprisonment, torture, death. For the sake of one's children, in order to minimize the bill that they must pay, one must be careful not to take refuge in any de lusion-and the value placed on the color of the skin is always and everywhere and forever a delusion. I know that what I am asking is impossible. But in our time, as in every time, the impossible is the least that one can demand-and one is, after all, emboldened by the spectacle of human history in general, and American Negro history in particular, for it testifies to nothing less than the perpetual achievement of the impossibl e. When I was very young, and was dealing with my buddies in those wine- and urine-stained hal lways, something in me wondered, What will happen to all that beauty? For black peo ple, though I am aware that some of us, black and white, do not know it yet, are very beautiful. And when I sat at Elijah's table and watched the baby, the women, and the men, and we talked about God's-or Allah's -vengeance, I wondered, when that vengeance was achieved, What will happen to all that beauty then ? I could also see that the intransigence and ignorance of the white world might make that vengeance in evitable-a vengeance that docs not really depend on, and cannot really be executed by, any person or organization, and that cannot be prevented by any police force or army: histor ical vengeance, a cosmic vengeance, based on the law that we recognize when we say, "Whatever goes up must come down." And here we arc, at the center of the arc, trapped in the gaudiest, most valuable, and most improbable water wheel the world has ever seen. Everything now, we must assume, is in our hands; we have no right to assume otherwise. If we and now I mean the relatively conscious whites and the rela tively conscious blacks, who must, like lovers, insist on, or create, the consciousness of the others-do not falter in our duty now, we may be able, handful that we are, to end the DOWN AT THE CROSS 347 racial nightmare, and achieve our country, and change the history of the world.

• From Collected Essays (1998)

  On the contrary, it reveals the weakness, even the panic of his adversary, and this revelation invests the victim with patience. Furthermore, it is ulti mately fatal to create too many victims. The victor can do nothing with these victims, for they do not belong to him, but-to the victims. They belong to the peo ple he is fighting. The people know this, and as inexorably as the roll call-the honor roll-of victims expands, so does their will become inexorable: they resolve that these dead, their brethren, shall not have died in vain. When this point is reached, however long the battle may go on, the victor can never be the victor: on the contrary, all his energies, his entire TO BE BAPTI ZED 4-07 lif e, are bound up in a terror he cannot articulate, a mystery he cannot read, a battle he cannot win-he has simply become the prisoner of the people he thought to cow, chain, or mur der into submission. Power, then, which can have no morality in itself � is yet dependent on hu man energy, on the wills and desires of hu man beings. When power translates itself into tyranny, it means that the principles on which that power depended, and which were its justification, are bankrupt. When this happens, and it is happening now, power can only be defended by thugs and mediocrities-and seas of blood. The representatives of the status quo are sickened and divided, and dread looking into the eyes of their young; while the excluded begin to re alize, having endured everything, that they can endure every thing. They do not know the precise shape of the future, but they know that the future belongs to them. They realize this paradoxically-by the failure of the moral energy of their op pressors and begin, almost instinctively, to forge a new morality, to create the principles on which a new world will be built. My sister, Paula, and my brother, David, and I lived to gether in London tor a while in 1968. London was very peace ful, partly because we hardly ever went out. The house was big, so that we were not on top of each other, and all of us could cook. Besides, going out was hazardous. London was reacting to its accelerating racial problem and compounding the disaster by denying that it had one. My famous face cre ated a certain kind of haz ard-or hazards: tor example, I re member a girl sitting next to me in a cinema suddenly seeing me in the light from the match with which she was lighting her cigarette. She stared and shook-1 could not tell whether she was about to cry Rape! or ask tor an autograph. In the event, she moved away.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  For no man tends to do a thing by his desire and endeavour unless it be previously known to him. Wherefore since man is directed by divine providence to a higher good than human frailty can attain in the present life, as we shall show in the sequel, it was necessary for his mind to be bidden to something higher than those things to which our reason can reach in the present life, so that he might learn to aspire, and by his endeavours to tend to something surpassing the whole state of the present life. And this is especially competent to the Christian religion, which alone promises goods spiritual and eternal: for which reason it proposes many things surpassing the thought of man: whereas the old law which contained promises of temporal things, proposed few things that are above human inquiry. It was with this motive that the philosophers, in order to wean men from sensible pleasures to virtue, took care to show that there are other goods of greater account than those which appeal to the senses, the taste of which things affords much greater delight to those who devote themselves to active or contemplative virtues. Again it is necessary for this truth to be proposed to man as an object of faith in order that he may have truer knowledge of God. For then alone do we know God truly, when we believe that He is far above all that man can possibly think of God, because the divine essence surpasses man’s natural knowledge, as stated above. Hence by the fact that certain things about God are proposed to man, which surpass his reason, he is strengthened in his opinion that God is far above what he is able to think. There results also another advantage from this, namely, the checking of presumption which is the mother of error. For some there are who presume so far on their wits that they think themselves capable of measuring the whole nature of things by their intellect, in that they esteem all things true which they see, and false which they see not. Accordingly, in order that man’s mind might be freed from this presumption, and seek the truth humbly, it was necessary that certain things far surpassing his intellect should be proposed to man by God.

• From Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption (2014)

  The holding cells for prisoners were in the basement of the courthouse, and after meeting with Walter, I made my way upstairs to get ready for court to begin. When I walked into the courtroom, I was shocked by what I saw. Dozens of people from the community—mostly black and poor—had packed the viewing area. On both sides of the hearing room, people from Walter’s family, people who had attended the fish fry on the day of the crime, people we’d interviewed over the past several months, people who knew Walter from working with him, even Sam Crook and his posse, were crammed into the courtroom. Minnie and Armelia smiled as I walked into court. Tom Chapman then walked in with Don Valeska, and they both scanned the room. I could tell from the looks on their faces that they were unhappy about the crowd. Tate, Larry Ikner, and Benson—the law enforcement team primarily responsible for Walter’s prosecution—piled in behind the prosecutors and sat down in the courtroom as well. A deputy sheriff escorted the parents of Ronda Morrison to the front of the court just before the hearing began. When the judge took the bench, the crowd of black faces noisily rose as one and sat back down. Many of the black community members looked dressed for church. The men were in suits, and some of the women wore hats. It took them a few seconds to settle into silence, which seemed to annoy Judge Norton. But I was energized by their presence and happy for Walter that so many people had come out to support him. Judge Norton was a balding white man in his fifties. He wasn’t a tall man, but the elevated bench made him as imposing as any judge. He had managed some of our earlier preliminary hearings in a suit, but today he was in his robe, gavel firmly in hand. “Gentlemen, are we ready to proceed?” Judge Norton asked. “We are, Your Honor,” I replied. “But we intend to call several of the law enforcement officers present in the courtroom, and I would like to invoke the rule of sequestration.” In criminal cases, witnesses who will be testifying are required to sit outside the courtroom so they can’t alter their testimony based on what other witnesses say. Valeska was on his feet immediately. “No, Judge. That’s not going to happen. These are the investigators who figured out this heinous crime, and we need them in court to present our case.” I stayed on my feet. “The State doesn’t bear the burden of presenting a case in these proceedings, Your Honor; we do. This isn’t a criminal trial but a postconviction evidentiary hearing.” “Judge, they’re the ones that are trying to retry this case and we need our people inside,” Valeska countered.

• From Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption (2014)

  We emphasized to the court throughout the day’s hearing that all of these statements were made by Myers before the initial trial. Not only did these statements make Myers’s recantation more credible but they had also been documented in medical records that had never been turned over to Walter’s trial lawyers, as the law required. The U.S. Supreme Court has long required that the prosecution disclose to the defendant anything that is exculpatory or that may be helpful to the defendant in impeaching a witness. The supporters whom the State had brought to court and the victim’s family seemed confused by the evidence we were presenting—it complicated the simple narrative they had fully embraced about Walter’s guilt and the need for swift and certain punishment. State supporters began to leave the courtroom as the day went on, and the number of black people who were let into the room grew. By the end of that second day, I felt very hopeful. We had maintained a good pace and the cross-examinations had been shorter than I had expected. I thought we could finish our case in one more day. — I was tired but feeling pleased as I walked to my car that evening. To my surprise, I noticed Mrs. Williams sitting outside the courthouse on a bench, alone. She stood when our eyes met. I walked over, remembering how unsettled I had been to see her leave the courtroom. “Mrs. Williams, I’m so sorry they did what they did this morning. They should not have done it, and I’m sorry if they upset you. But, so you know, things went well today. I feel like we had a good day—” “Attorney Stevenson, I feel so bad. I feel so bad,” she said and grabbed my hands. “I should have come into that courtroom this morning. I was supposed to be in that courtroom this morning,” she said and began to weep. “Mrs. Williams, it’s all right,” I said. “They shouldn’t have done what they did. Please don’t worry about it.” I put my arm around her and gave her a hug. “No, no, no, Attorney Stevenson. I was meant to be in that courtroom, I was supposed to be in that courtroom.” “It’s okay, Mrs. Williams, it’s okay.” “No, sir, I was supposed to be there and I wanted to be there. I tried, I tried, Lord knows I tried, Mr. Stevenson. But when I saw that dog—” She shook her head and stared away with a distant look. “When I saw that dog, I thought about 1965, when we gathered at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma and tried to march for our voting rights. They beat us and put those dogs on us.” She looked back to me sadly. “I tried to move, Attorney Stevenson, I wanted to move, but I just couldn’t do it.”