Attorney Bryan Stevenson was outside an Alabama prison in 1981, arriving to meet a client, the first time he saw the bumper sticker.
“If I’d known it was going to be like this, I’d have picked my own damn cotton,” it read.
The message was among many on a pickup truck that Stevenson says was a virtual shrine to the Old South, complete with a Confederate emblem.
As it turns out, the truck belonged to a white prison guard who harassed the young lawyer and subjected him to an unwarranted strip search. Stevenson said it was because he is African-American.
It also turns out, after seeing Stevenson’s work in a courtroom on behalf of mentally ill Death Row client George Daniel, the prison guard later apologized to the attorney for treating him so poorly.
The prison guard said that like Daniel, he was a foster care product with a horrible life.
Stevenson’s advocacy on behalf of a desperate, defenseless person helped him see the error of his ways, he said.
It was a life-altering moment of hope for Stevenson.
“I believe that injustice prevails where hopelessness persists, and we need people like you who are hopeful about what they can do,” Stevenson said Wednesday night at Jacksonville Area Legal Aid’s 16th annual Robert J. Beckham Equal Justice Awards Celebration at the Omni Hotel.
JALA provides legal, social and economic justice for poor and marginalized people. Originally the Duval County Legal Aid Society, the organization was formed in the mid-1930s by a group of attorneys who recognized an imbalance in the local criminal justice system.
Stevenson, founder and executive director of the Alabama-based Equal Justice Initiative, won the Alabama case after presenting evidence that the clinical psychologist who declared Daniel competent to stand trial was a fraud. Daniel was then transferred to a mental health facility for the criminally insane.
Noting the United States has about 5 percent of the world’s population and 25 percent of its prisoners, Stevenson says legal challenges for poor people, particularly African-Americans, remain as prevalent as ever.
It will take more than being diligent with hopefulness and initiating uncomfortable conversations about race and injustice, advocates for justice should “get into proximity with people who are not like us,” Stevenson said.
“This is the only way to stop being manipulated by politics of fear …” he said. “The opposite of poverty isn’t wealth. The opposite of poverty is justice.”
The work of JALA staffers and volunteer attorneys often provide the only opportunities of hope for criminal defendants, many of whom are innocent, Stevenson says.
“One of the problems and great challenges in this country is that we have a criminal justice system that has come to treat you better if you’re rich and guilty than if you’re poor and innocent,” he said.
While facing setbacks along the way, Stevenson’s career of helping poor, incarcerated and condemned people has had successes, too. The Equal Justice Initiative has won legal challenges exonerating dozens of innocent prisoners on death row and eliminating excessive and unfair sentencing.
Also, a historic U.S. Supreme Court ruling siding with the Equal Justice Initiative held that mandatory life without parole sentences for children 17 or younger are unconstitutional.
A graduate of Harvard Law School and Harvard School of Government, Stevenson published a memoir, “Just Mercy,” which was a New York Times best-seller and was named one of Time magazine’s Top 10 nonfiction books of 2014.
Attended by about 250 people, the JALA celebration also was highlighted by the presentation of the organization’s Equal Justice award for philanthropy and volunteerism to Jacksonville attorney Robert Spohrer.
A longtime pro bono attorney for JALA, Spohrer also has served on the group’s board of directors and chaired the board’s fund-raising foundation.
He is member of the Inner Circle of Advocates, which consists of 100 top plaintiff attorneys in the United States, chairs the Southern Legal Counsel, a Florida nonprofit that promotes equal justice and human rights, and is on JaxPort’s board of directors.
Also Wednesday, JALA awarded Outstanding Pro Bono Service Awards to attorneys Laura J. Boeckman, Bruce Duggar, Blane McCarthy and Lois Ragsdale. Philanthropy Awards were given to The Jacksonville Bar Association and Rogers Towers law firm.