Movie: The Mercy of Justice
Genre: Drama
Director: Destin Creighton
Starring: Michael B. Jordan, Brie Larson, Jamie Fox
Release Date: December 25, 2019 (USA)
Awards: 91st National Critics Association Awards NBR Free Expression Award, etc
The scale of fairness and justice has always existed within the scope of moral law, and what scope and degree of fairness and justice people want need to be understood, fought for, adjusted, and maintained, which is a never-ending road.
The American film "Righteous Mercy" tells such a story. In 1980, Stevenson, a young man who had just graduated from Harvard Law School, came to Alabama without hesitation and founded a nonprofit organization that provides legal aid to death row inmates. It was not a popular place, what he did was not a popular thing, there was a deep prejudice between people, and as a black man, he was often discriminated against.
McMillion, a black youth, was the first case Stevenson had taken on, and McMillion was accused of killing an 18-year-old white girl and sentenced to death based on just a few pages of flawed testimony. This stems from the deep-rooted local concepts of race and class, rich and poor, skin color has become the criterion for judging a person's good and evil, when a person is weak and powerless, his life and death are insignificant and trampled on. However, McMillian had a full alibi, so he spent a full 6 years on death row.
McMillian is completing an impossible life task, counting down his own death date day by day, knowing that he should not die, 6 years is enough to wear down his will to survive. Until Stevenson found him, Stevenson impressed McMillion in terms of personal experience, collecting evidence, interviewing witnesses, etc., and the two decided to work together to wash away their grievances. McMillian finds two friends, Heb and Ray, in their death row, who turn on music and listen to a soothing piece of music while other prisoners are arguing and fighting. Even if you live in a very harsh environment, you can try to find your own moment of tranquility.
Life is the length of time, every minute and every second is its own life, if it is being manipulated by other forces, then it is necessary for the individual to regain the dominance of life, this life is named after the individual, and the individual needs to be responsible for it to the end.
Stevenson is also accomplishing the impossible task of helping more people like McMillion wash away their grievances, even if he has committed a crime. The most difficult thing was to open a passage for these people in the judicial environment of the time, because the social environment at that time did not take into account the legitimate interests of these individuals, and McMillian was an "imperfect" victim, he lived in a poor community, because of the infidelity was exposed by the community, it seems that this can also make him a potential "murderer". Like the broken window effect, once a complete window is broken, then others can do whatever they want.
The people who open the mountain and split the road have always taken a thorny road, they are different from others, insist on doing the right thing, do not care whether others like themselves, in the battle between reason and emotion, they must remain rational. Others did not see that this was a road, but they not only saw it but also insisted on walking, on this road night stars, wind and rain, cliffs and cliffs and all other difficult times surrounded them, and there were all kinds of provocations by ignorant and fearless people, framed by opponents, and suppressed by rulers, enough to die on the road. These people uphold a spirit is "on the road", for thousands of years human beings have been pursuing fairness and justice, countless people have fallen on the road, going forward, want to take a "no man's road", before setting off to be prepared to pay everything.
Only a very small number of people can be brave and persevering to speak out for the legitimate interests of others, and most ordinary people are easily frightened by difficulties and shrink back. But it is these different choices that create many contradictions in the world, with people manipulating public power to frame good people, searching for and threatening lawyers who are working at gunpoint, doing whatever they want. Almost everyone knows this is not right, but almost no one believes who can change the situation.
"The Mercy of Justice" combines the two characteristics of the film "Shawshank Redemption" and "Miracle in the Green", one is how to seek justice when individuals are treated unfairly, that is, to let desperate and helpless individuals solve their dilemmas according to their own will, judicial injustice does not mean that justice does not exist; the other is that the deterrent power of the death penalty should be used to maintain fairness and justice, not a tool for power operators to do whatever they want. So, the film doesn't highlight Stevenson's personal strength in its narrative, he's weak and helpless, and the freedom he enjoys is only one piece of evidence that prisoners can fill in at will.
"An unfair trial is worth ten crimes", the apparent justice of the procedure has been hijacking factual justice, new evidence submitted by Stevenson is ignored, and McMillian upheld the death sentence. The film is filled with a sense of powerlessness and despair, and the film gives people like McMillian many opportunities to speak, revealing the little-known inner struggles that are not easy for individuals to say and do whenever and wherever they are.
The choice of human nature is very delicate, the community of interests is far more powerful than the choice of human nature, if the witnesses do not cooperate in order to protect themselves, if the personal threats faced by Stevenson come true, Stevenson can succeed thanks to many lucky factors.
The fairness and justice that people seek begins with the idea of treating people as a "person", regardless of birth, wealth, skin color, and other factors, and although more and more people like Stevenson are engaged in this cause, the physical and mental harm of a wrong judgment to an ordinary person will last a lifetime, just as mistakes, even if they are corrected, will not be eliminated.