with the newly launched effort to build a statewide public defender system with resources, standards, and training. It would replace a hodgepodge of lawless systems spread across 159 counties. Many were just as corrupt as the setting of Just Mercy. Within two years, the promise of reform in Georgia was derailed and I moved to New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina to help a group of reformers build a professional public defender office in a locale that could not be more hostile to the right to counsel.
I also did some work in Alabama and Mississippi, and I soon recognized that each of these systems – like those I saw in Georgia and New Orleans- were shaped by a culture of injustice that was hard for even the most passionate justice advocate to resist. I quickly realized that the support and clientcentered ethos I grew up with at the DC Public Defender Service, and that was present in a handful of other highly regarded public defender offices, was only a dream for most public defenders. While the best public defender offices in the nation pushed the systems in which they operated to be better, in most places, a dysfunctional criminal system shaped indigent defense providers into lawyers who helped perpetuate an unjust status quo.
Recognizing the desperate need to transform this culture and support the passionate public defenders who were committed to raising the standard of representation, my wife – a dedicated educator and child of an incarcerated parent – and I founded Gideon’ s Promise. Along with an incredible group of amazing public defender trainers, we built an organization that now has recruited, trained and mentored thousands of public defenders in more than half the states. All work in jurisdictions with grave culture and resource challenges.
Many have experienced systems as inhumane and dysfunctional as what viewers witnessed in Just Mercy. All can share stories of corrupt law enforcement, prosecutors who prioritize convictions over upholding the constitution, and judges who value efficiency over justice. Each can share countless stories of people they represented, that they came to care about deeply, who they could not help to escape a terrible injustice. These defenders carry with them the pain of watching so many lives unnecessarily shattered, families destroyed, and communities devastated. The biggest difference between these experiences and Just Mercy is that the endings are rarely uplifting.
However, like Bryan Stevenson in Just Mercy, who was driven by the belief that every person is so much more than the worst thing they have ever done, these defenders center the human beings they serve. Together they have built a community of likeminded defenders who commit to ongoing training, mentorship and community building. They are honing their ability to learn the stories of their clients that otherwise go unheard and to amplify their voices as they work to infuse the system with humanity and shift the mindset of other systemic actors. They are raising the standard of representation today and developing into the leaders we need tomorrow.
These defenders understand that through years of ignoring the protections at the heart of our democracy when those impacted are society’ s most vulnerable members, we ushered in an America where those protections are more fragile for all of us. They have been the canaries in the coal mine who we ignored for far too long. Today, Americans increasingly decry an administration that belittles judges, threatens law firms, and defunds non-profits that challenge it when it engages in constitutional overreach. To those of us who have devoted our lives to defending the constitution, this was predictable. When we allow those in power to chip away at constitutional protections for society’ s most
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vulnerable members, we pave the way for a broader disrespect for the rule of law. Eventually, the repercussions will touch us all.
The foundation of our democracy will never be strong until it is fortified in the spaces where public defenders toil. Without fanfare, recognition, or meaningful material gain, the advocates fight for the promise of equal justice for all of us. We do not know who they are, but we owe them a huge debt of gratitude.
Unlike the book upon which the movie is based, which uses the narrative of Walter McMillan to tie together a broader discussion of the myriad issues fueling an unjust criminal legal system, the film’ s primary focus is on the story of the wrongful conviction of an innocent man. The filmmakers understood that this story evokes sympathy. It provides a lens through which we can critically examine our approach to criminal justice. But the film is about more than a single story of grave injustice. It is about the routinized criminal process that ignores our highest constitutional ideals when those impacted are deemed undesirable. It is about the humanity within every person, and the cost to us as a society when we disregard it. And it is about the nobility of the purpose-driven individual who dedicates themself to pushing our nation to live up to its democratic promise.
To me, Just Mercy was a love song to public defenders, and to the rare but exceptional members of the legal profession who eschew the lure of status and material gain and devote themselves to fighting for equal justice for all.
Jonathan Rapping is the founder of Gideon’ s Promise, a non-profit organization dedicated to building a community of public defenders to drive justice reform across the country, and the author of Gideon’ s Promise: a Public Defender Movement to Transform Criminal Justice. He is a Professor at Atlanta’ s John Marshall law School where he serves as the Faculty Director of the newly launched Criminal and Civil Justice Institute and the Director of the Criminal Justice Certificate Program.
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