A Scathing Indictment on the Criminal Justice System, and One Hell of a Great Movie

Rating: 10/10 (2 January 2009)

The one reality of this film is that the kid probably did kill his father. Yes, Fonda's character is very skilled at manipulating the facts in the jury room, which does create enough reasonable doubt in the minds of a confused jury. Fonda truly does have the "soft sell." Of course, Fonda's acts should have been carried out by the public defender who was representing the kid, if they had, the district attorney could have countered all of them. But the fact that the public defender did such a poor job, it ends up actually handicapping the prosecution. Everything in the jury room is left to speculation, because it could not be fully uncovered in the court room. All of the points made by Fonda could have easily been addressed and most likely shot down by the DA. If anything, they could have been explored. I think this movie speaks towards the poor defense that most poor/minorities get when their lives are turned over to public defenders that are working 10 cases at one time. This is after all a Warren Era case. In the end, we have a jury trial, in which the Prosecution presents an open and shut case. The defense is too incompetent to make one valid argument for not guilty. However, the case gets re-argued in the jury room, by twelve amateurs that don't really have all the information they need to properly asses the facts of the case. The reality is, that if the kid had had a good defense attorney, he would have been found guilty. But the bad job done by his ill-prepared attorney created the perfect conditions for one juror to raise reasonable doubt. Now, if that is not an indictment against our criminal justice system, I don't know what is.