On 13 January 2014, Center for Law and Policy screened A Time to Kill for the LL.B. students at the UMT School of Law and Policy. The movie was a part of the course. Skills Development-I taught by Syed Imad-ud-Din Asad [LL.M. (Harvard); Founder and Director, Center for Law and Policy; Founding Director and Associate Professor, UMT School of Law and Policy] in the LL.B. program.
A Time to Kill is based on John Grisham's famous novel with the same name and is directed by Joel Schumacher. Sandra Bullock, Samuel L. Jackson, and Matthew McConaughey star in the film.
The film is set in Mississippi and involves the rape of a young girl, the subsequent arrest of the rapists and their murder by the girl's father. The father, Carl Lee Hailey played by Samuel L. Jackson, seeks the help of a young lawyer, Jake Brigance, who risks almost everything to fight Hailey's case in court. However, personal costs are not the only ones that have to be paid as the inter-racial conflicts reach a more national level and lead to the involvement of the Ku Klux Klan that wants Hailey punished for his crime. Other violent incidents follow before the final day of trial in which Brigance raises the question of race and how the jury would have reacted had the convict been white.
The movie raises important points with respect to the strong racial divide between blacks and whites. It was followed by a thorough discussion led by Professor Asad.
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