Death Row Records

“Just Mercy,” film by Destin Cretton, 2019

Unlike so many typical films about the special oppression of people with darker skin, Just Mercy is not set during slavery or Jim Crow.  It is set in the late 1980s, early 1990s in Alabama, which makes it especially relevant to today.  The film shows how institutional racism continues in the legal system, especially in murder cases.  Shoddy and incompetent defense counsel, lazy and racist police work, ignored evidence, bad eyewitnesses and forensics and biased judges, district attorneys, prosecutors, sheriffs and cops all play their role.   This film is set in Alabama but this happens even in the North as the 2002 Myon Burrell conviction involving Minnesota prosecutor Amy Klobuchar showed. 

 

The Murderous State on Death Row

This is the true story of Bryan Stevenson, that rare Harvard law school grad who decided to take up unjust convictions on death row, not a sinecure at an investment bank.  He starts the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) with federal funds and his first big case is that of Walter McMillan, who was unjustly convicted of the murder of a young white girl at a dry-cleaner in Monroeville, Alabama.  There was no evidence except a jail-house snitch who was forced to change his testimony and a young black man, who it is later learned was nowhere near the murder scene.  Witnesses who knew McMillan was at a picnic all day were ignored.  The ironic joke is that while he’s in Monroeville the prosecutor tells Stevenson to visit the Monroeville courthouse where To Kill a Mockingbird was set, even while denying that this ‘conviction’ might be bogus.  It is clear many in Monroeville do not understand the meaning of the film or book to this day.  Stevenson and his coworkers at the EJI are sort of modern Atticus Finches.  This is further proof why Harper Lee got away from Monroeville as fast as she could – and still would!

The laziness displayed by the local Baldwin County, Alabama Sheriff and prosecutor made we wonder how many murder cases actually get solved or are erroneous.  1 of every 9 people on death row are exonerated according to the film, so the error rate is very high. 1 in 25 are exonerated after their execution.  If you had that kind of error rate on your job, you’d be fired. 

The solid South has the highest incarceration rates for states, with Louisiana leading the list.  From 1965 to 2018, the national ‘murder clearance rate’ was 66.25%, which means an arrest was made, even if it was mistaken.  This is the best rate for all crimes with vehicle theft the worst - 13.8%. According to the U.S. government in 2018 62.3% of murder cases ended in arrest.  38.7% went unsolved and of those arrests, more than 1 in 9 were erroneous from the death row stat.  The National Registry of Exonerations lists 68 murder and manslaughter convictions in 2018 overturned, with “official misconduct” the chief reason.   Because of the high rate of erroneous convictions as shown by the various Innocence Projects, local bodies are setting up special investigative groups to look at the issue. 

This film is based on the inaccurate, cruel and racist nature of death row and the death penalty, not just faulty police work.  It steals part or all of an inmate’s life, damages his family and community and impacts him for life even if he is released.   The solid South, the inter-mountain West, some prairie states, along with northern states Indiana and Ohio still have the death penalty – 25 states in all.

While the film is a roller-coaster eventually ending in the exoneration of McMillan and ‘hopeful’ testimony by Stevenson before Congress, (doing his best Obama impersonation) the reality is that the whole incarceration and bail system remains for the most part intact.  While this heroic legal work puts a dent in the situation, racist capitalism remains.  The death penalty, over-policing and legal discrimination are based on the police playing a continuing role in labor discipline of the population, especially the darker-skinned and more exploited.  This has been inherent in U.S. capitalism since the beginning of the country.   It will not end until the financial and political structures behind it are removed and remade into forms of actual proletarian justice.      

Other prior reviews on this issue, use blog search box, upper left:  “Are Prisons Obsolete?”(Davis); “Klobuchar a Hot Dish Neo-Liberal,” “Slavery by Another Name,” “Prison Strike Against Modern Slavery,” “The New Jim Crow,” (Alexander) “Loaded,” (Dunbar-Ortiz) “Southern Cultural Nationalism and Southern Liberals,” “Monroeville, Alabama,” “Got Set a Watchman.” (Lee)

The Cranky Yankee

Lucky Friday the 13^th! (Coronavirus and Wall Street exempted…)

March 13, 2020