Just Mercy (2019) on Netflix
PG-1320192h 17mBiographyCrimeDrama
Bryan Stevenson moves to Alabama to defend people who cannot afford a lawyer, and founds the Equal Justice Initiative with Eva Ansley. On death row he meets Walter "Johnny D." McMillian.
- Netflix4.1/5
- IMDb7.6/1085,929 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes85%
Trailer
Plot summary
In 1989, a Harvard law graduate named Bryan Stevenson arrives in Alabama to represent people who cannot pay for their own defense. With Eva Ansley he opens the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery and begins visiting death row inmates seeking appeals. One of them is Walter "Johnny D." McMillian, sent to death row for the 1986 killing of Ronda Morrison, an eighteen-year-old white woman. He says he did not do it. Reviewing the case, Stevenson finds it turns almost entirely on Ralph Myers, a convicted felon whose contradictory testimony earned him a lighter sentence in his own pending case. Prosecutor Tommy Chapman dismisses Stevenson without even reading his notes. Darnell Houston, a family friend of McMillian's, spent the day of the murder with a witness who had backed Myers, and Stevenson asks him to testify.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Just Mercy (2019)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Walter McMillian's former cellmate, Anthony Ray Hinton, remained on death row for 28 years; Stevenson handled his defense and was eventually able to get all the charges dropped, and Hinton was released in 2015.
- In 2024, Stanford University used Just Mercy in a psychology study, and the researchers concluded that participants who watched it had an increased empathic understanding of formerly incarcerated people.
SPOILER
Walter McMillian's innocence in the 1986 murder of Ronda Morrison was confirmed by a follow-up investigation; evidence suggested a white man was likely responsible, but the case has never been officially solved.
