A time to kill movie summary trial#

Yet bad karma has led to enriched moviegoing. It proved less a gift than a hot potato: a moral tightrope of a subject, casting antipathy between director and author (over who would play the lead) and a shoot in the inflammatory and sweltering atmosphere of a Mississippi summer haunted by the ghosts of movies past - To Kill A Mockingbird casts a long shadow. By far his best work, A Time To Kill carried semi-autobiographical overtones that the scribe (and, now indeed, producer) had, fearing the worst, been unwilling to fritter off onto the Hollywood production line. It later became a movie that also received positive reviews.So enamoured was he with Joel Schumacher's solid if unremarkable handling of The Client, that one-time legal eagle turned author-of-the-moment John Grisham handed the director the reins to his precious debut novel. It was written by a lawyer who practiced law for ten years, and it shows because the legal scenes are authentic and accurate. Jake earns only $900 for this case but is thrilled with winning it because it will lead to more success.Ĭritics liked A Time to Kill. During deliberation, the jury deadlocks for several days and eventually returns a verdict of not guilty after one juror asks if they would kill someone if their daughter were raped and everyone answers yes. However, Jake begins to believe he will lose the case when a psychiatrist who testifies for him has been charged with statutory rape in his past.

A time to kill movie summary trial#

Jake’s trial strategy is to claim that Carl Lee was insane at the time of the shooting. He ends up paralyzed as a result of being shot in the back by an arrow that hit him while standing next to Ellen during this attack.

She gets beaten up by them but survives it all however, they shoot her boyfriend Peter instead of her because they missed their intended target (Jake). In retaliation for what happened to Stump, the Klan burns down Jake’s house and then abducts Ellen, Jake’s legal aide who was helping him with his case against them. The National Guard is summoned to keep peace in town. His robe catches on fire, and he later dies from his injuries. They regularly protest outside of the courthouse, where one day a riot erupts when a firebomb is thrown at Grand Dragon Stump Sisson. The tension between blacks and the Ku Klux Klan continues to escalate. Jake sends his wife and daughter away until the trial ends. One night dynamite is placed beneath Jake’s bedroom window, but it’s only thanks to an anonymous tip that Ozzie warns him in time. The threats eventually escalate into violence when the KKK forms a new chapter in Ford County. Soon after Carl Lee is arrested, he and his family begin to receive threatening phone calls. He hires some lawyers from an organization called NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People), but Carl Lee decides to stick with him as his attorney. However, Jake wants to win the case so he can become famous through media coverage. The odds of winning the case are low because it is in Mississippi. Carl Lee Hailey is Tonya’s father he gets revenge on the rapists by killing them with an M16 rifle that was illegally obtained.Ī 32-year old white lawyer named Jake Brigance agrees to represent Carl Lee, a black man who shot and killed two men who raped his daughter. She survives, so they’re caught by Sheriff Ozzie Walls who’s also black. They rape her and throw her off a bridge to see if she can survive. In the beginning of the novel, two white men named Billy Ray Cobb and Pete Willard kidnap a ten-year old black girl named Tonya Hailey. The story takes place during the 1980s and explores themes of racism, intolerance, and revenge. John Grisham’s 1988 novel A Time to Kill is about Jake Brigance, a lawyer in Mississippi who defends Carl Lee Hailey for killing two men. 1-Page Summary of A Time To Kill Overall Summary