In the movie A Time to Kill, the main character Jake Brigance attempts to invoke empathy in the jury in his final statement to prove that Carl Lee is innocent. In Brigance’s final statement, he first asks the jury to close their eyes to imagine the brutal and inhumane raping of a young girl by two men. This rather disturbing scene is what Tonya Hailey, the daughter of the defendant Carl Lee has gone through, which leads to Carl Lee murdering the two men who hold responsible of bringing such pain onto his daughter. Brigance mainly uses detailed description of the raping scene to invoke empathy in every jury member. He also gets more and more emotional as he continues to describe the scene, which successfully brings out the emotion of the jury. However, this is only apparent empathy because the jury members are still imagining the experience of Tonya Hailey, a black girl. Real empathy is still not invoked in the all-white jury until Brigance says the last sentence of his closing statement, “Now imagine she’s white” (A Time to Kill, 2:20:20-2:20:22). Brigance finally invokes the real empathy in the jury because now the jury can really be in the shoes of Carl Lee, which makes them believe that Carl Lee is innocent.
Brigance attempts to invoke empathy in the jury because his final statement is pretty much the final chance that he can use to prove that Carl Lee is innocent. In all the previous court sessions, he is not allowed to bring in the rape as one of the factors that drives Carl Lee to kill the two men, and he also fails to prove that Carl Lee is insane when killing the two men. It is extremely hard to prove that Carl Lee is not guilty because he did kill the two men in cold blood, and an all-white jury is definitely not favoring Carl Lee. Brigance goes to see Carl Lee the night before the final court session. He is enlightened by what Carl Lee says, “Now, throw out your points of law, Jake. If you was on that jury, what would it take to convince you to set me free?” (A Time to Kill, 2:11:17-2:11:29). At this point, there is no way to save Carl Lee using the law. Invoking the empathy in the jury is the only way to save him, and it has to be real empathy, not apparent empathy.
In Brigance’s final statement, he tries to convince the jury that all people are equal under the law, regardless of the skin color. “The eyes of the law are human eyes, yours and mine, and until we could see each other equal, justice is never going to be evenhanded” (A Time to Kill, 2:15:15-2:15:21). This statement makes the jury really start to wonder if the result of the two men and Carl Lee would be different if race does not play a role in the decision. As a result, real empathy is also invoked when the jury understands that they did not treat Carl Lee as equal as white men. At the end, Brigance successfully invokes empathy in the jury, letting them believe that they would do the exact same thing under that circumstance. Eventually, they were able to make the decision to set Carl Lee free.
Work Cited
A Time to Kill. Joel Schumacher. Warner Bros, 1996. Swank Motion Pictures. Web. 20 Sept 2017.