Exoneration stories like Mercy for Justice may be inspiring, but there is also a dark side to choosing which stories to tell.
The film Mercy of Justice is about Brian Stevenson, the defense lawyer for death row inmate Walter Macmillan. From the founding of Stevenson's nonprofit legal defense organization, Action for Equal Justice, to the four-and-a-half-year appeal process in Macmillan's case, Mercy for Justice describes racial inequality in the legal system in stark and convincing terms.
Mercy of Justice has many common metaphors: overwhelming evidence in favor of the accused, racist law enforcement officers, and the outcome of victory, but it also spreads two messages. Major mistakes in the justice system are often corrected. Telling the story of victory is more convincing than telling the story of defeat that justice will eventually be done.
<h1>death penalty</h1>
Mercy of Justice portrays multiple death row inmates, but only Herbert Richardson is executed. Richardson confessed to the crimes he had committed, but there were also some extenuating circumstances. He said he had mental problems when he returned from Vietnam, which was one of the reasons he committed his crimes, and the execution inspired Stevenson to continue working on Macmillan's case.
However, from another point of view, the offender will eventually be punished. Therefore, the film is inconsistent with its message. On the one hand, the death penalty is an unjust punishment. On the other hand, the only death penalty shown in this film is the death penalty of a criminal, strictly speaking, executed according to law. Both views are true, but it depends on whether the audience supports the death penalty.
Richardson's plot is structured to motivate the protagonist, but thematically, it is about Stevenson's opposition to the death penalty as a means of punishment and an extension of an unjust legal system.
<h1>The case of McMillan</h1>
Macmillan's case is the climax of the film, with Stevenson managing to win a retrial and subsequently dismissing all charges. However, the most important message it conveys to the audience is that with courage, hard work, and skillful legal thinking, the system can be defeated.
From the beginning, Macmillan was innocent. He was arrested by a police officer who was clearly racist. The policeman's portrait bears the flag of the Confederacy, and he can use racist words with impunity, while Macmillan has only one entire community pretext. During Stevenson's investigation, a key witness withdrew his testimony. When Macmillan was finally acquitted, partly because the newly appointed district attorney finally saw his apparent innocence.
From here we can see that the system is corrupt, unjust, and full of racism, and that a person has lost nearly five years of life and is forced to live in fear of imminent death. Fortunately, The Mercy of Justice is full of righteous endings that suggest that there are a series of constraints and balances in this system that will eventually make the system satisfactory. Yes, the system is imperfect now, but it has the possibility of self-correction in it.
<h1>"Compassion" on a larger scale</h1>
At the end of the film, a statistic from the Website of Action for Equal Justice is quoted. "For every 9 people executed, 1 death row inmate is proven innocent." This not only means that executions are unjust, but that the execution of the death penalty is also complicated by the likelihood that innocent people will be executed.
There are very few films of this kind, and fictional stories like "Miracle in the Green" end in the execution of an innocent character, while documentaries like the Thirteenth Amendment depict the worst tendencies of the American justice system. In general, directors tell more stories of the eventual success of the judicial system than they do about the failure of the judicial system, which provides material for the balance of the judicial system.
Still, the heart of "Mercy for Justice" is inspiring: Brian Stevenson, with his ingenuity and perseverance, won the freedom of the misjudged Walter Macmillan. When viewers see a true story where a person succeeds under a deeply flawed system, they may move on with the drive to change the system.
Perhaps, there is value in telling stories of justice triumphing over injustice, but such stories obscure hundreds or thousands of untold stories of those who were wrongly convicted end up in prison or executed rather than with impunity. While a film that ends in an unjust mediocre victory over innocents may not break any box office records, it is ubiquitous in the daily trenches of the justice system.
Maybe justice really won't be absent!