A Time to Kill

It is true that the law is simply a reflection of our own prejudices.

 In the 1996 movie “A Time to Kill” Samuel L. Jackson stars as the father of a young girl that is brutally raped by two white men in Canton, Mississippi. Enraged, and noting that others were recently acquitted of the same crime in a nearby town, Jackson obtains an assault rifle and kills the two men himself before they can be tried. He enlists a local attorney to defend him, played by Matthew McConaughey, and resists the advice of the local NAACP to hire their own high powered attorneys for his defense.

In 1846 the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Roger B. Taney wrote for the majority in the Dred Scott case that Blacks “Had no rights which the white man was bound to respect”. There are few places where this was truer than Mississippi. It was a foregone conclusion that Jackson’s character would die for killing two white men in Mississippi. It did not matter what had happened to his daughter. She had no rights that a white man was bound to respect, and neither did he. If the Ku Klux Klan did not get him, the courts would.

One reason that Jackson’s character (Carl Lee Hailey) wanted McConaughey’s character (Jake Brigance) to defend him was because they had known each other for many years and although they considered themselves friends, they were admittedly not close. However, Jake had a daughter that was the same age as Carl’s.

As one would expect, the case created racial tension in the community. There were demonstrations and riots. The governor called up the National Guard to quell the riots. The KKK tried to bomb Jake’s home and eventually burned it down. They killed his secretary’s husband and attacked his assistant, (Sandra Bullock) tying her to a tree and leaving her to die (she was rescued).

The prosecutor, played by Kevin Spacey, demanded the death penalty and seemed destined to get it from an all-white jury until Jake’s climactic closing statement before the jury. The courtroom was packed with Black and white spectators. The streets outside the courthouse were filled as well with people anxiously awaiting the outcome of the trial. The National Guard was also there to maintain the fragile peace. After apologizing to the jury for his own failings and asking the jury not to hold them against his client, he told them he wanted to tell them a story. Then he said,

“Close your eyes, listen to me…listen to yourselves.

This is a story about a little girl, walking home from the grocery store on a sunny afternoon. Suddenly a truck races up, two men jump out and grab her. They drag her into a nearby field. They tie her up. They rip her clothes from her body…They climb on. First one and then the other. Raping her. Shattering everything precious and pure…with a vicious thrust…in a fog of drunken breath and sweat.

When they’re done, after they’ve killed her tiny womb, murdered any chance for her to bear children, to have life beyond her own, they use her for target practice. So they start throwing full beer cans at her. They throw them so hard, that it tears the flesh all the way to her bones.

Then they urinate on her.

Now comes the hanging. They have a rope. They tie a noose. Imagine the noose coiling tight around her neck…and a sudden blinding jerk, she’s pulled into the air, and her legs go kicking…they don’t find the ground. The hanging branch…isn’t strong enough. It snaps, and she falls. Back to the earth. So they pick her up, throw her in the back of the truck, drive out to Foggy Creek Bridge, and pitch her over the edge. She drops some 30 feet, down to the creek bottom below.

Can you see her?

Her raped, beaten, broken body…soaked in their urine.

Soaked in their semen.

Soaked in her blood.

Left to die.

Can you see her?

I want you to picture…that little girl…

Now…imagine…she’s white.”

That all-white jury in Mississippi acquitted Carl Lee Hailey, a Black man of killing two white men.

Why?

Because in their hearts, they knew that if someone had abused a white child in the same way that Carl Lee’s child had been abused, killing the people that did it would be justifiable homicide.

An incredible amount of attention has been placed on recent cases of young Black men being killed by police officers and pseudo law enforcement individuals hiding behind ridiculous “stand your ground” laws. This is not news. It has been the status quo in America for hundreds of years.

The third chapter and the third verse of the book of Ecclesiastes says, “A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up.”

“The law is simply a reflection of our own prejudices”.

Until the day arrives when America has overcome its racial prejudices, the “time to kill” America’s Black men with impunity will not end.