![]() ![]() ![]() In 1985, 29-year-old Hinton was convicted of committing two murders near Birmingham, Alabama. ![]() The 16-year fight to free Hinton surely would not have succeeded without hope. “You cannot be someone who advances social justice if you do not protect your hope and your hopefulness,” he said. Nonetheless, by sharing stories taken from his career defending clients on death row, Stevenson compellingly illustrated the critical need for compassion, and the characteristics necessary in lawyers and others who want to create change: the desire to get close to the issues and people they care about, the willingness to endure uncomfortable situations along the way, and the ability to maintain hope. “I work in a broken system of justice,” Stevenson said. According to the Bureau of Justice, one in three black male babies born in the US will ultimately spend time in jail or prison. He underscored that, in a country with 25 percent of the world’s imprisoned but only five percent of its total population, the role racial discrimination plays cannot be ignored. “The striking thing to me is that we don’t seem to be particularly ashamed of that fact,” Stevenson said. Four decades later, that number has mushroomed to 2.3 million. In the United States in 1973, 300,000 people were in jail or prison, he said. ![]() Addressing a packed room on April 1 that included many lawyers-in-training, Stevenson didn’t pull any punches in describing the American criminal justice system. ![]()
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