I watched the movie, A Time to Kill, on TV the other night. The movie is about a man named Carl Lee Haily, played by Samuel L. Jackson, who guns down two white men that had raped his 10 year-old daughter. Jackson's character believed that they might be found not-guilty for the rape because of the deep seated racism in Mississippi, so he kills them. Subsequently, his defense attorney is able to sway the jury to find Haily not-guilty, even though he killed the two men in the courthouse with dozens of witnesses. It was interesting to me how the film made you side with Jackson's character and the whole time you wanted him to get away with murder. (The two rapists that he killed were also involved with the Klu Klux Klan, which didn't help their cause either.) This is an example of the vengeance that most of us want, when we see cases like this. The two men deserved to die and justice was done. I am against the killing of people for their crimes but sometimes I sway on this issue. What if Hailey didn't murder the two men and they were found not-guilty of rape and set free. Where's the justice there? I can't promise that I wouldn't do the same thing if that happened to my daughter. Films like these teach us that there is a sort ambivalence towards the death penalty and/or vengeance. Its seems illogical to be for it but because we are emotional beings, sometimes our logic is less important.
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