Fordham Law Forum on Law, Culture, & Society
What do the movies listed below tell us about the legal system? Despite whatever concessions the screenplays make to Hollywood’s commercial imperatives, these movies reflect some realities about the justice system. They shine an unflattering light on the system and the concerns and motivations of its participants. The one reality they nearly all illustrate is that the justice system is not necessarily interested in seeking truth. For victims of crime—including those portrayed in the films listed below—truth-seeking is an essential component of their sense of justice. Its significance is one of the areas that is least recognized in the criminal justice system. What do these movies tell us about crime victims and the consequences of the system’s failure to address their needs?
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Movies About the Legal System and the Portrayal of Crime Victims
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Many of the movies listed are a critique of the legal system and how it (in its present form) is lacking in providing real justice to crime victims.
For example, many crime victims, and more generally legal system participants, must resort to other (usually self-help and more dangerous) methods of finding resolution for the crimes committed against them. This is shown in “In the Bedroom” when the father of a murdered child killed the offender. The movie seems to imply that they were driven to vengeance because of their experience in the system: not much progress was being made on the case and the victim’s family kept running into the offender around town. Also, this idea is seen in the movie “Sleepers” when the prosecuting attorney (and victim of child abuse) did not play by correct legal rules in order to achieve the outcome and justice he wanted and deserved.
Cgonzalez: In the Bedroom is a stark and heartbreaking account of how the justice system re-victimizes those already harmed by crime. Not only is the family of the murder victim not permitted to be heard or involved in their case, as ABoushi says below, but also, while free on bail, he is able to shop in the same markets as the victim’s parents. The parents seek their own justice after this re-victimization.
A Hollywood-ready (but so far not-adapted-for-the-screen) example is the Clara Harris case. One way to view the case is that of a woman who had no recourse under the law to the kinds of emotional harms she experienced that Rosenbaum describes in The Myth of Moral Justice. From a victims’ rights perspective, the Harris case is an example as compelling as “In the Bedroom” or “Sleepers” and probably would have played better as a movie.
The legal system fails in two other ways: One it does not provide adequate resources or counseling to victims that have suffered severe mental trauma; and second, the legal system does not adjust the punishment (usually jail time) for criminals whose circumstances bring them to the point of committing a crime.
In “In the Bedroom,” the victims get lost. The victim is engine of the case because they do the initial reporting, but by the time of the trial, the parents in the movie are no longer a part of the case. The prosecutor doesn’t reach out to the victims.
Not only does the prosecutor fail to reach out to the parents of the murder victim, he actively avoids them. Any responsiveness he initially showed the parents seems to fold under the weight of his belief that there is nothing that the criminal justice system can do to respond to their needs.
He doesn’t really listen to them. In the end, the victim’s story was not acknowledged publicly in a formal way.
To formally incorporate the victim into the criminal justice system can occur in various ways and it is often easy. The “Accused” and “In the Bedroom” both show the idea that the victim should be heard and involved in the criminal justice proceedings related to the case. “The Accused” shows how easily the victim can be involved in the proceedings, and “In the Bedroom” shows how necessary it is for victims to be involved.
In “The Accused,” Kelly McGillis doesn’t involve Jodie Foster. She doesn’t want to put Foster on the stand because she was drunk and stoned all the time, and she wasn’t a demure witness. But Foster wanted her day in court. She wanted to tell HER story. She wanted acknowledgement.
Movies such as “The Accused” and “Erin Brockovich” show the healing power of having one’s story told. With legal options such as plea bargains and settlements, the truth is often “hushed up” in order to resolve cases quickly. These movies show that the opportunity for victims to tell their story has a very important place in the legal system and can provide much more just and satisfying results.
“The Accused” highlights the victim’s right, and need, to have her story told. This provides some part of justice to the victim in order to feel whole again after the offense.
The incorporation of the victim into the system allows the victim to “take back” an aspect of their life that was upended by the crime. I also believe that this ability to tell their stories is not only important to the community and the victim, but it may also have an important impact on the defendant. Hearing, from the victim, the impact of the crime, how the victim felt during the crime, and the ramifications of the defendant’s actions could enable the defendant to truly realize the effect they have had on the victim, which may elicit a true and sincere apology from the defendant. An apology that acknowledges the victim’s pain and story. Acknowledgement from the defendant and society helps to restore the victim.
“The Accused” is rare in that it is a film that explores not only the serious offense of rape from the victim’s perspective, but also the way the witnesses were involved in the crime. The film explores the revictimization of the rape victim in the court proceedings. It also explores how she was put on trial for her character and past—implying that she played some part in causing the offense, rather than putting the true perpetrators (offenders) on trial.
In the movie, we see a societal judgment, where the victim, not being of pristine character, is judged as someone who not only consented to the crime, but was rather more asking for the sexual act to happen. Although this is a reality of the justice system, it is ideologically unjust to put the victim on trial in such a manner and it is a standard that is perpetuated by society.
Kobe Bryant is a good example of this dynamic. The numerous court errors, which resulted in the release of the accuser’s confidential data, exacerbated the strategies of Bryant’s attorney’s to put her on trial in the press before the actual trial against Bryant began, and the public was rapt by the salacious details. In rape cases, putting the victim on trial is the oldest and most effective trick in the defense counsel’s book. Bryant’s defense team made it clear from the start that they would undertake an “aggressive attack on her credibility and morality,” and part of that attack was to portray her as someone who consented to sex with the intention of falsely claiming rape later in the hopes of a substantial cash settlement from Bryant. We’ll never have the opportunity to assess the truth of the stories of what happened in the Eagle, Colorado, hotel room because the accuser was eventually intimidated into silence. The mock cross examination in preparation for trial by her attorney’s was determinative for the accuser. Rather then subject herself to the kind of hostile tactics planned by Bryant’s attorneys, she decided to withdraw as a witness if Bryant agreed to apologize.
The trial in “The Accused” is unique in that it also explores the importance of the “community” [in this case, the witnesses at the bar who encouraged the gang rape] and its effect on the commission of crimes. The role of the community in the justice system is more crucial than we think. The witnesses in the bar where the rape occurred were charged with solicitation. This expands on group dynamic theory in which individuals are drawn into activities they would not likely do if making the decisions on their own without group pressure and persuasion. In fact, in the movie we see hesitation in two of the offenders before committing the crime. It is also intriguing that the movie explores the perspectives of the rape of these community members, viewing the commission of the rape as nothing more than a live sex show, even when during its commission the victim was clearly struggling to free herself and screamed “no” on many occasions.