Just Mercy – A Paradigm Shift?

Just Mercy, a remarkable movie released in early 2020, is based on Bryan Stevenson’s book “Just Mercy:  A Story of Justice and Redemption”.  After serving as an intern helping death row inmates, young lawyer Stevenson (Michael B. Jordan), moves to Alabama to devote himself to the cause on a full-time basis.  It is during this time that Stevenson focuses on the case of Walter “Johnny D.” McMillian (Jamie Foxx) who was accused and convicted of killing a teen girl based on the testimony of two unreliable witnesses.

Just Mercy is a fact-based courtroom drama that tackles the subjects of the death penalty and racial injustice.  Stevenson’s commitment to persevere, to doing the right thing, and to fighting for those who need it the most remains the main theme of the movie. The film leaves theatre-goers with the message that our criminal justice system is irreparably broken and not reliable enough to condemn a fellow human being to death.

In a recent piece in the LA Times, reporter Stuart Miller puts the death penalty on trial by capturing the essence of Just Mercy along with another film, Clemency.  Miller believes that the two films share common goals and that audiences will end up “rethinking the death penalty and America’s prison-industrial complex.” Miller went on to write that MASH star, Mike Farrell, believes that TV series’ and movies have the power to “make people aware of the reality of the death penalty.”  Also from Miller’s article, “Just Mercy notes that for every nine people executed in America, there’s one innocent person exonerated from death row.”

Despite the Trump administration’s recent lifting of a long-standing federal moratorium on the death penalty, there are increasing signs that use of the death penalty is waning.  In 2019, the State of New Hampshire became the 21st state to abolish the death penalty, California Governor Gavin Newsom declared a moratorium on executions, and a Texas appeals court blocked the imminent yet controversial execution of Rodney Reed. Additionally, Barry Scheck, co-founder of the Innocence Project, says that for the first time ever, all Democratic presidential candidates oppose capital punishment.  “That’s progress,” Scheck says.  “So these movies come out at a very good moment when the public view of the death penalty is changing profoundly.”

While DNA testing and advocates such as the Innocence Project, Equal Justice Initiative, Death Penalty Focus and the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty (NCADP) have driven the shift, Scheck says movies and series help shape public opinion.  Last month, as the Death Penalty Information Center reported on its website, use of the death penalty in the U.S. continues to decrease.  The report says that the 22 executions in 2019 were down from the previous year’s 25 executions.  The report also noted that death sentences have declined by more than 85% and executions by more than 75% from their peaks in the 1990s.

Just Mercy director Destin Daniel Cretton, who was changed by directing the movie, said “the film brought me into close proximity to a problem that I didn’t really think about much before.  Once you meet the people who are affected by the broken system, to laugh and cry with them and feel their humanity, it becomes very hard to look away.”  Cretton says that a man, after viewing the screening, told him Just Mercy changed his views.  “If this film can do that for one person, I think it was worth making,” Cretton said. Stevenson remains hopeful, “there’s a moment now for these films to have resonance that can turn into action and activism.”  NCADP has long understood the tremendous impact films like Just Mercy can have on coalescing opposition against the death penalty. Through its Justice Powered by Information and Action (JPIA) Program, NCADP has developed its Grassroots Film Promoters Program which is aimed at nurturing and developing a grassroots base dedicated to organizing screenings and promoting films like Just Mercy. 

I have been opposed to the death penalty since reading the remarks of then-New York Governor, Mario Cuomo, at the College of St. Rose in Albany, New York on March 20, 1989.  Gov. Cuomo said in his speech, “I have concluded the death penalty is wrong, that it lowers us all, that it is a surrender to the worst that is in us, that it uses a power – the official power to kill by execution – which has never elevated a society, never brought back a life, never inspired anything but hate.”  Since joining the board of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, I have had the privilege of working closely with a number of other individuals dedicated to the cause of abolishing the death penalty across our land.  Using the words of Gov. Cuomo, I continue to believe with all my mind and heart that the death penalty does not help us, it debases us, that it does not protect us, and that it makes us weaker.  

No one can predict when a paradigm will shift, but there are signs today that the moment may be getting closer.

David D. Dodge is a Board Member of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty

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