Racism – LAWYERS & LIQUOR

There’s a sort of fucked up irony in watching Kevin Spacey seek the death penalty for a man who killed the rapists of his ten year old daughter. In 1996, when Spacey was presented as the District Attorney in charge of the trial of Carl Lee Hailey, father of a minor who was brutally raped and vengeance embodied against the abusers of that child, nobody could predict that one day Spacey himself would be in the same place as the two rapists killed by Carl Lee. Well, nobody except his victims, I suppose.

But this is where we’re at for this Film Friday, examining the big screen adaptation of John Grisham’s A Time to Kill, and talking about four unexpected truths regarding the justice system that a layman, or an idealistic lawyer who still thinks things are “fair,” can take away from it.

The world is one fucked up place, folks. Just really, really fucked up.

Continue reading “Film Friday: A Time to Kill – Four Truths in a Lie”

Southern trees bear strange fruit
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees

As the night falls and the moon rises, we’ll take a journey this week far beneath the law library into the catacombs where the bones of lesser lawyers line the walls and guttering torches light the way. That’s right, it’s time to enter the legal crypts for another monthly edition of Freaky Friday here on Lawyers & Liquor, where we talk about the morbid, morose, paranormal, or unsettling parts of the law and legal history. So settle in and sit a spell as we pull down a dusty tome of dark legal, and illegal, knowledge to drop on you. Especially this time, as we talk about the ghosts of America’s past, both figurative and literal, of those denied justice, sentenced to death, and executed by the whims of the mob and the animus of illogical hatred.

But first, a warning:

Today’s post will contain graphic historical images and content. There is no nudity, but it will be disturbing. There will be dead people. There will be people killed for their skin color. Feel free to avoid the post this month. I’ll be back next month with another one that’s more light-hearted.

Continue reading “Freaky Friday: The Ghosts of Justice Denied”