Bryan Stevenson

We have these 13 states where there's no minimum age.

When these laws took effect about 40 years ago, I started getting calls from parents

of five- and six-year-old children who were being put in handcuffs in kindergarten for behaviors.

It was this kind of zero tolerance, this mindset that children can just be crimes.

And I think what you're saying about the capacity for change is most dramatic in that population for me because one of the things I quickly learned is that when I represent young kids, I can't just be a lawyer.

I've got to be a parent.

and a brother and a counselor and a friend, because children in these really hostile, violent environments are still yearning for affection.

They're still yearning for something that makes them feel valuable.

And so one of the things I quickly realized is that my young plants were constantly wanting me to visit them, like every week.

And they'd be in prisons, you know, hundreds of miles away.

And I was like, you know, I can't.

So I started doing this thing where I would say, I'm going to send you a book.

When you read the book, I will come and see you to talk about it.

And my clients, who were many of them very reluctant readers, some of them not good readers, started this whole reading thing.

And I would send them harder and harder books, and I would pick the books, and then I started letting them pick the books.

A client who was sentenced to life when he was 14, and I've now represented him for 30 years.

And a couple of years ago, he called me late at night, and I was a little kind of provoked, because he's not supposed to call that late.

But I picked up, and I said, why are you calling so late?

He says, it's an emergency.

I said, what's the emergency?