American Justice

"Yes, they deserved to die and I hope they burn in hell!" — Carl Lee Haley, "A Time to Kill."

"A Time to Kill" is my favorite film. I still remember the first time I saw it, there was something about the film that always stuck with me. It remains my favorite film for a lot of reasons. It's well acted. It's got a killer cast. The lines and arguments are memorable. And there is something compelling about the story.

The only problem is, I don't agree with the ending. Carl Lee Haley goes free. He killed two men, and yet he walks free. The music swells, the cast smiles, and you're supposed to feel like justice was done. I love everything about the movie, but I don't love that ending. To me, it's not justice... not really.

You see, Carl Lee shot and killed two men, but they weren't much of men. They were poor, southern racists that raped, beat, and nearly killed a little black girl — Carl Lee's girl. And, fearing they might get a light sentence or get off because of the demographics of his town, Carl Lee took justice into his own hands. At least that's what the film would have you believe. But it wasn't really justice, not Biblical justice and not even justice by the standards of the laws we claim to uphold.

Some people think the film is anti death penalty, but it's not. In fact, Carl Lee's defense lawyer, Jake Brigance (Matthew McConaughey), even says that he believes they don't use the death penalty enough. He just doesn't believe Carl Lee deserves the death penalty, he believes what was done was justice. Sadly, many Americans probably do too.

Of course in the trial Brigance uses temporary insanity as the legal defense, but the real strategy employed is jury nullification, which is obvious in the powerful closing sequences. The goal of that kind of strategy is to give the jury a reason to let the defendant go because they believe their actions were right.

That's really the point of the film. It's supposed to be a happy ending. The music swells. The key players smile. Justice was served — but it wasn't.

John Grisham, the author of the book upon which the film is based, intended to make a statement about justice with the piece. He got the idea while sitting in court watching a rape trial. He couldn't help but wonder what he would do if his own daughter was raped, so "A Time to Kill" was born.

Based on what we see today, doubtless most people would agree with that assessment. I used to feel the same, but that changed. I would like to say it's all due to my understanding of Biblical justice changing — and that's part of it — but not the whole story.

While I still agree with the principle behind capital punishment, it's hard to have faith in the current system that administers it. That was an idea that was reinforced for me by watching the story of the West Memphis 3 in "Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory."

To the outside, it appeared that the three teens convicted of murdering three 8-year-old boys deserved retribution. In fact, when 18-year-old Damien Echolls was sentenced to death, the parents of the victims proclaimed it justice.

Fortunately Echolls' story was captured for a documentary film, and the outcry over inconsistencies in the evidence caused strangers to rally around Echolls and his co-defendants. Eventually enough support and money was raised to discover new evidence — scientific and witness based — to prove that the convictions were baseless.

Today, the West Memphis 3 are free. Of course, they haven't been vindicated. The state is protecting its own interest — letting the men go but proclaiming their guilt despite evidence to the contrary. But imagine if there had been no film crew? Echolls could easily have received the terminal end of his sentence long before the truth came out.

If this case was an isolated incident it would be haunting enough, but it's not an isolated incident. Though the ideas upon which are system of justice is based are sound, in practice it is flawed. Flawed, too, is our sentimental notion of justice. Both need to be fixed.

I don't know what the answer is, and I know it's not going to be quick and easy. But when you see a case like the one involving the West Memphis 3 it's hard to escape the idea that something has to be done to prevent a miscarriage of justice like that from happening in the future. And that change, likely, will have to begin with the way we perceive justice as a society.