{"id":3529,"date":"2009-01-29T16:22:46","date_gmt":"2009-01-29T21:22:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=3529"},"modified":"2009-01-29T16:22:46","modified_gmt":"2009-01-29T21:22:46","slug":"in-defense-of-to-kill-a-mockingbird","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2009\/01\/in-defense-of-to-kill-a-mockingbird\/","title":{"rendered":"In Defense of To Kill a Mockingbird"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>One of my favorite legal movies is\u00a0To Kill a Mockingbird<\/span>.\u00a0 The movie is an adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Harper Lee.\u00a0 I disagree with my esteemed colleague Professor Daniel Blinka\u2019s recent blog that he\u2019d \u201crather leave the planet than read or watch\u00a0To Kill a Mockingbird<\/span>\u00a0\u2013 Finch loses the big case and gets his client killed; nice job!\u201d\u00a0 I just watched the movie again for about the 50th\u00a0time!\u00a0 The movie was clearly a fiction, but it symbolized for me a cultural acknowledgement of an ugly chapter in our history where racism interfered with an equitable disbursement of justice.\u00a0 The movie depicted the era of southern lynchings, Jim Crow laws and the civil rights movement.\u00a0 Justice, particularly in the south, was not meted out in a colorblind manner.<\/p>\n

The movie starred Gregory Peck as attorney Atticus Finch who represented an African American man, Tom Robinson, who was wrongfully accused of raping a White woman in a southern Mississippi town.\u00a0 The evidence clearly established that Robinson had not committed any crime against the alleged victim.\u00a0 Rather, the facts indicated that the alleged victim\u2019s father had physically assaulted her after witnessing her kissing Robinson.\u00a0 Notwithstanding the evidence, the all-White jury convicted Robinson.\u00a0 Hence, Professor Blinka was correct that Finch lost the case.\u00a0 However, the movie would have less emblematic of the times if the jury had acquitted Robinson.\u00a0 Five very high-profile real life murders during this era reflected the impossibility of Finch\u2019s task.\u00a0 An all-White jury exonerated the suspects of the 1955 murder of Emmett Till in about one hour even though the evidence established their likely involvement in the murder.\u00a0 Medgar Evers, a civil rights pioneer, was killed in Mississippi during 1963.\u00a0 The evidence pointed to the guilt of the primary suspect; however, two all-White juries deadlocked on his guilt.\u00a0 The suspect was finally convicted during 1994.\u00a0 The civil rights workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner were brutally murdered in 1964.\u00a0 No one was charged with these murders until 2005 even though suspects had been implicated shortly after the deaths.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I was born and raised in an integrated community in upstate New York after these killings.\u00a0 The movie\u00a0To Kill a Mockingbird\u00a0<\/span>was my first exposure to the tumultuous civil rights period.\u00a0 I watched the movie for the first time as a child with my parents. The movie had an immediate impact on me.\u00a0 I experienced a range of emotions – anger, shock, confusion and sadness. The sadness, anger and shock resulted from the conviction and subsequent death of Robinson.\u00a0 The confusion resulted from the death of the movie\u2019s villain, the alleged victim\u2019s father, at the hands of a meek neighbor, and the sheriff\u2019s decision to cover up the murder.\u00a0 Irrespective of the flaws in the court system, the sheriff was obligated to arrest the neighbor.\u00a0 However, I was also inspired after watching the movie.\u00a0 Finch made a great personal sacrifice to represent Robinson, including placing his children in harm\u2019s way.\u00a0 This fictitious character inspired me to become an attorney, to help the disadvantaged and to be willing to make personal sacrifices for a cause.\u00a0 Consequently, while\u00a0To Kill a Mockingbird<\/span>\u00a0was clearly a fictional tale, I will, indeed, watch it for the 51st<\/sup>\u00a0time when I crave inspiration!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of my favorite legal movies is\u00a0To Kill a Mockingbird.\u00a0 The movie is an adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Harper Lee.\u00a0 I disagree with my esteemed colleague Professor Daniel Blinka\u2019s recent blog that he\u2019d \u201crather leave the planet than read or watch\u00a0To Kill a Mockingbird\u00a0\u2013 Finch loses the big case and gets his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3529","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-popular-culture-and-law","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3529","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3529"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3529\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}