“And Justice For All”
Introduction
The movie “And Justice For All” portrays a number of legal concerns and concepts as described by Rennison and Dodge (2015), and thus this paper aims at illustrating some of these legal matters and issues. The focus issues are on chapters 7, 8 and 9, which are mainly about courts, the judiciary, prosecution, defense, pretrial, trials, and sentencing. The paper further discusses the challenges faced by judges, prosecutors, defendants, and lawyers.
Literature Review
The most dominant issue in the movie is depicted through Arthur Kirkland, who is a defense lawyer trying hard to defend his clients while fighting ethical deterioration in the American justice system. Mr. Kirkland doesn’t like the manner at which the courts are handling defendants. For instance, Kirkland’s client, Jeff McCullough, is charged to five years of imprisonment after making a pretrial deal to plead guilty with the promise of “getting off” (And Justice For All, 1979, 00:30:39). The defendant’s turn of events was possible because the judge had been replaced at the last minute before the day of trial. The example clearly shows the plight defendants usually have to go through before trials. That is, Jeff McCullough was first arrested for a failed taillight, but a few months later, his traffic hearing morphed into a criminal hearing.
McCullough’s case is also relatable to Ralph Arggey, who was sentenced to three years although he was supposed to be released on probation (And Justice For All, 1979, 1:09:44). The “mistaken” sentencing was due to the defendant’s lawyer not reading the altered probation reported presented to the judge. The aftermath of Arggey’s sentencing was him taking his own life in prison. The incident was a stressful news to Mr. Kirkland, which led him to physically attack Warren Fresnel, his partner, and who forgot to read Arggey’s probation report.
The movie also gives us a glimpse of a lack of Missouri Plan, which is the need to elect a judge whose intentions are to eliminate politics (Rennison & Dodge, 2015). That is, when Kirkland was asked to represent Judge Fleming, he was suspicious; and when he asked why he was picked for the role, the reply was, “we need you for political reasons” (And Justice For All, 1979, 00:35:40). Hence, this indicates the court’s intentions to protect one of their own despite Judge Fleming’s factual guilt, whereby he admitted to raping the plaintiff. However, his admission to rape is admissible because he didn’t do this in court; thus, legal guilt is not permissible.
The movie displays the aspect of gender diversity whereby Ms. Gail Packer is a sturdy female representation in the Ethics Committee tasked to curb “a lot of corruption that’s going on and nobody is doing anything about it” (And Justice For All, 1979, 00:22:04). The aspect of gender equality is supported by Rennison and Dodge (2015), who point out the 1975 Taylor ruling, which guaranteed gender and sex equality in the jury service. A similar equality is also evidenced in the composition of the jury, who are adjudicated by the judge to render an impartial verdict and/or ascertain a defendant’s guilt on criminal cases. In the movie, while Mr. Kirkland was making his opening statement on Judge Fleming’s case, the jury consists of a mixture of male and female members.
Conclusion
The movie had several legal concerns as described in chapters 7, 8 and 9, most of which have been shared in this paper. Therefore, it is safe to mention that all involved stakeholders (judges, lawyers, prosecutors, defendants) have their own challenges and issues such as moral dilemmas, stereotypical misconceptions, technological disputes, and false sentencing. Nonetheless, the American courts have evolved since the movie’s initial setup of the 1970s.
References
Rennison, C., & Dodge, M. (2015). Introduction To Criminal Justice (16th ed., pp. 104–213). London: SAGE Publishers. Retrievable from https://bit.ly/2SbIQPu
And Justice For All. Dir. Norman Jewison, Columbia Pictures: United States, (1979). Retrievable at https://bit.ly/2RcYdXR
