Bryan Stevenson

I think even if you kill someone, you're not just a killer.

And we shouldn't be judged by just that

One bad act.

I think we all don't want to be reduced to the worst thing we've ever done.

No human being wants to be imprisoned by one mistake, one falsehood, one bad reaction.

We desperately yearn to be seen as something more than that.

And I think it's worth committing to a worldview that allows that to shape our thinking.

And in so many of our institutions, in so many places, we've not done that.

Our criminal justice system is a system that seems very much rooted in this idea that you can only be the crime you've been accused of.

And I think that leads to a lot of injustice.

It leads to a lot of

misjudgment about who people are.

I mean, for me, it's been important to commit to this concept that we're all more than the worst thing we've ever done, because I don't want to be judged by the worst things I've done.

But I also realize I have to share that with other people.

It's interesting, in this country, for a long time, we had legislators that

When you listen to them talk about creating new sentences and punishments, they talk as if they can put crimes in prison.

I hate that crime, so I want to give that 20 years.

I hate that crime.

I want to give it 50 years.

And they're talking as if they have the ability to put a crime in prison, to put it in there for life and all of these other things.