By Lauren
As I lay in bed this morning, willing myself to get up and go to the gym before class, I decided that my sore throat warranted a day off and settled in to watch I Am Sam which was playing on TV. I had never seen it before, but I realized that I was watching it with a new perspective. It helped to illustrate the importance of a victim’s story, the objective nature of the law, and the way the law only recognizes physical damage rather than spiritual damage.
For those who don’t know, I Am Sam tells the story of a single father, Sam, with the mental capacity of a 7-year-old, who is trying to regain custody of his daughter after a social worker deems him incapable of caring for her and takes her away. Sam shames Rita, a high-powered lawyer, into taking his case pro bono after he shows her up as cold and heartless in front of her colleagues.
One scene that really struck me was when Sam tried to pay for Rita’s meal in the cafeteria and she belittled his effort. Sam realizes that Rita, the one person he believes can help him, thinks the same things as the people trying to take his daughter away from him. Even though she says that it doesn’t matter what she thinks, Sam emphasizes that it matters to him. He wants and needs his lawyer, the person fighting for him, to understand his plight and to believe in his story. Without her genuine support, he is left alone and vulnerable to the opposing lawyer convincing him that he can’t provide his daughter with everything she deserves. How can a lawyer who agrees with the other side effectively represent her client? It was a slap in the face for Sam who realized that he was alone in trying to make his story heard, and even more difficult, getting others to believe it.
This movie is a great representation of how the law focuses solely on the objective, when the subjective can really tell us much more. Looking at the situation objectively, it seems clear that a man like Sam, essentially a 7-year-old, would not be able to raise his daughter. This is all that the opposing lawyer, Mr. Turner, thinks about and focuses on. But a more subjective look into Sam’s life shows that he possesses so many other qualities that make him a wonderful father and that he has a great support system full of people who love his daughter and who are willing to help him. Mr. Turner cannot or will not step away from his objective view to see that there is so much more to what makes a good father than what you see on paper. Sam brought an unusual element to the courtroom—raw emotion—which really gives everyone a chance to see that separating him from his daughter will cause much more spiritual harm to both of them than any physical harm the daughter might experience if she were to remain with her father. Mr. Truman doesn’t accept this as a legitimate reason to allow Sam to keep his daughter, since spiritual injury doesn’t fit into the traditional legal paradigm.
