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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   32785 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 12, 2023

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I very randomly watched A Time to Kill, a now mostly forgotten film that had some super-hot takes on the culture war back when it came out in 1996. Overall, I liked it a lot and thought it threw out some genuinely interesting moral considerations, but I also found the tone and message... wonky.

The premise - In the Deep South of Alabama (presumably in 1996), two drunk red neck good old boys who liberally say "nigger" and have a Confederate flag on their truck are trawling around town harassing random people. On a whim, they kidnap, rape, torture, and try to murder a 10 year old black girl. She survives, but is left with lots of injuries, including being unable to ever have children.

The rednecks are quickly arrested and everyone in town hopes they'll receive swift justice, but some people aren't so sure they will. Alabama is still considered deeply racist, and apparently a similar case a few years ago saw different perpetrators escape punishment. So the father (Samuel L. Jackson) takes matters into his own hands. While the two suspects are being marched through the local court house on the way to their trial, the father guns them down with an assault rifle, and accidentally wounds a police officer in the process.

The rest of the movie is a courtroom drama where a white lawyer (Matthew McConaughey) defends the father while the local DA (Kevin Spacey) tries to charge him with double first-degree murder. Meanwhile, the brother of one of the suspects tries to get the literal KKK to terrorize the lawyer to sabotage the defense. He's told that there is no KKK in town, but through some contacts, the brother finds the nearest Grand Wizard who then commands the brother to set up a local chapter. Throughout the trial, the KKK launches various terrorist attacks on the town and amasses 100+ members to march through the streets, and gets into violent encounters with pro-father protesters.

To get to the most interesting culture war-y part, I need to SPOIL the plot, so don't read on if you don't want to know what happens in a 25 year old movie.

The Defense mostly fucks up in the trial and it looks like the father is going to be convicted. The biggest problem for the Defense is that the jury is all white and presumed to be racist/unsympathetic. In one scene, the jurors are shown talking about the trial (illegally) the night before its conclusion, and all 12 jurors admit that they will vote guilty (one of whom even refers to the defendant as a "nigger").

Cut to the climactic closing statements of the trial. The DA gives a rousing speech about how he feels sorry for the father given what his daughter went through, but the law is the law, and you can't just murder two men in cold blood because they wronged you. Then McConaughey gives his closing statement: he recounts in gruesome detail every step of the 10 year old girl's kidnapping, torture, and rape, and concludes with... "now imagine if she was white."

The Defense wins the trial. The father is cleared of all charges and goes free. The film's narrative portrays this as an unambiguously good thing.

There's a lot to unpack here, but a few prompts:

  1. Was 1996 Alabama really THAT racist? Would the random average white person in Alabama at that time be considered racist enough by default that they would automatically side against any black defendant? Were there enough real, true, hardcore racists that the KKK could field 100+ protesters at a big racial trial?

  2. How differently, if at all, would such a trial be perceived today?

  3. What is a proper punishment for the father, if any? If I had to give a verdict, I'd say he should be found guilty and sentenced to 10 years in prison, which is an extremely short sentence for a double murder and maiming of a cop, but warranted given the context. I most certainly wouldn't be comfortable with finding him not guilty, not if we want to have a functional society.

Non-culture war addendum - the movie has an insane amount of contemporary and future movie stars. There's Matthew McConaughey, Samuel L. Jackson, Kevin Spacey, Sandra Bullock, Ashley Judd, Donald Sutherland, Kiefer Sutherland, Kurtwood Smith, Oliver Platt, Chris Cooper, Charles Dutton, and I'm proud of myself for spotting Octavia Spencer as a literal extra.

You've gotten a lot of good replies and discussion and I can't add much more of use other than to say I lived in Alabama most of my youth and had just returned there from abroad in 1996, after having lived in southern Africa. I remember watching that film and feeling it was far too sensationalized--though I never read the Grisham novel upon which it is based so I don't know how much was Hollywood and how much was in the book. Either way, that film, as well as the film Mississippi Burning which had come out eight or so years earlier, just really struck me as off.

All of my schools when I grew up were around 60/40 black/white, and there was never any palpable tension between races that I remember. My main friend group at the lunch table consisted of entirely black guys. I was with black guys on the track team. Which is not to say there was wholesale intermixing as there wasn't--my one black friend who played sax in the band with me once chastised me for calling him at home--His parents, he suggested, wouldn't approve of him talking on the phone to a white boy. (Whether this was true or just his perception is not for me to decide.)

The only one violent episode I recall was between black gangs, and that blew over without me knowing much about its aftermath. Of course one person's experience in one city in Alabama can't be very representative.

Was 1996 Alabama really THAT racist? Would the random average white person in Alabama at that time be considered racist enough by default that they would automatically side against any black defendant?

I don't think so. Emmett Till's killers had to half-ass hiding the body and were shunned after openly admitting to the crime. I'd suspect that the jurors and community members were willing to look the other way and give a lot of benefit of the doubt, but felt it was distasteful to openly admit to...something that might not quite have been murder in their eyes, but was still rather ugly. I'd think that if it was an open-and-shut case and it went to trial, there'd be a good chance of conviction. The most likely way that these guys could get away with it is the case just not going to trial and it either being hushed up or the good ol' boys being quietly told to leave town.

How differently, if at all, would such a trial be perceived today?

Evil racists raping decent people; with media and federal attention/oversight any good ol' boys who were inclined to cover it up or help the suspects would know they were being watched like hawks.

What is a proper punishment for the father, if any? If I had to give a verdict, I'd say he should be found guilty and sentenced to 10 years in prison, which is an extremely short sentence for a double murder and maiming of a cop, but warranted given the context. I most certainly wouldn't be comfortable with finding him not guilty, not if we want to have a functional society.

For the double murder: probably a light sentence, if any. For the maiming of the cop, five years in prison. There's a case to be made for giving him a pardon after ten years' good behavior and expunging his record after 15.

I have a bit of a weird stance on vigilantism. I think it's morally justified... as long as the vigilante immediately turns themselves in, pleads guilty, and accepts the punishment meted out by the court. That allows for redress of extreme injustice by someone with sufficient conviction to accept the result of their actions, but prevents an endless cycle of retaliatory extrajudicial violence.

In theory, at least. I'm sure it's a terrible idea in real life.

I don't understand this position.

If you have to render justice yourself, it means the current sovereign is illegitimate because it refuses to do its duty. Yet if you submit to its authority you in deed show yourself to believe it is still legitimate.

Either you're morally justified to break the law or you're not. "I can just ignore it because I really feel like doing so" is exactly what leads to the endless cycles you bemoan. Whether or not people get imprisoned afterwards.

sovereign

Well someone could just not believe in a Hobbesian theory of the state or morality. If you want other theories of political and moral legitimacy there are reams available in all stripes.

Well sure, but I guess I'm asking how OP conceptualizes it.

Was 1996 Alabama that racist? Yes, and no. It's hard for many people to get a handle on the mentality of rurals and the rural south. I'm actually from rural Ohio, but I have close relatives from the south, and it seems like people who live an hour from Columbus have more in common with people who live an hour from Columbia than they do with people who live in those cities a short distance away, so maybe I can offer some insight.

First, the N word is still thrown around carelessly in close company. In the 90s, moreso. It's derogatory but only nominally connected to race. There are true, hardcore racists as well, but they are mostly reactionary. They don't even categorically hate blacks even if they say they do. One of the most outspoken people i know would certainly be called a vile racist by most Americans on both sides of the aisle, but has an adopted black younger brother and has threatened the life of anyone who would call HIM a nigger. The closest parallel is probably to the kinds of nutters who call democrats "demon-rats" and claim they are all, to a man or woman, satanic child groomers, etc, despite having many close friends, co workers, and family members who are associated with that party. Of course, as there are lines in politics, so it goes in life. Badmouthing democrats but being friends is fine, but voting for one is certainly a step too far. Similarly, badmouthing and claiming to hate blacks while being their friend is fine, but a black boy who aimed to date their daughter would face one hell of an uphill battle to say the least.

Second, most people would probably immediately side against a black defendant in most instances. Shoplifting, theft, bne, barfights, whatever, the onus would be on the black guy to prove his innocence. I'm not sure this would be one of them- it really depends on how credible and known the evidence against the rapists was. Rurals will protect their own to an extent, but they know who the scumbags are. If those two were already known to be shitheels, they would 100% support the father's vigilante justice regardless of race. On the other hand, if the media circus caught wind and started making the whole thing about race or some other liberal value, the whole thing could flip in a second and they'd string him up out of spite. At that point all bets are off.

If those two were already known to be shitheels, they would 100% support the father's vigilante justice regardless of race. On the other hand, if the media circus caught wind and started making the whole thing about race or some other liberal value, the whole thing could flip in a second and they'd string him up out of spite.

Fuck, that's how I'd deal with the situation too, and I'm a 4th generation city-slicker plus a civil-libertarian to boot.

Here's some some dueling anecdotes, provided from a hit-and-miss piece against Elon Musk:

They [Elon Musk and his siblings] had to make calculations when they were going out with nonwhite friends about what they could safely do, he said.

One time at lunch, a white student used an anti-Black slur, and Mr. Musk chided the student, but then got bullied for doing so, Mr. Ranwashe said.

Mr. Mashudu [Elon's BFF] was killed in a car accident in 1987, and Mr. Ranwashe said he remembered Mr. [Elon] Musk being one of only a handful of white people who attended the funeral in the family’s rural village.

“It was unheard of during that time,” he said.

Original version: https://archive.is/nmjHu

Updated version which takes most of the sting out: https://archive.is/26gMt

I call it "hit-and-miss" because the original version was clearly trying to make Elon Musk bad and racist for refusing to censor twitter, but failed horribly because the incidental anecdotes reveal Musk hating everything about apartheid including it's censorship regime.

"now imagine if she was white."

Yeah, imagine this movie being made in 2023 with the colors reversed. Two Black men raping a White girl, her White father gunning down them both in broad daylight, mostly peaceful BLM protestors terrorizing the town in response.

mostly peaceful BLM protestors terrorizing the town in response.

And with the full support of the mainstream media who refuse to report that the men were rapists and imply they were simply innocent victims of a hate crime.

The Cum Town podcast, of all people, I think did a fairly good dissection of the movie and how manipulative it is:

https://old.reddit.com/r/LikedYTVideos/comments/qqj9a5/cum_town_a_time_to_kill/

Then McConaughey gives his closing statement: he recounts in gruesome detail every step of the 10 year old girl's kidnapping, torture, and rape, and concludes with... "now imagine if she was white."

The book handled it a lot better. It was later known that a white woman in the jury convinced the other jurors.

What is a proper punishment for the father, if any? If I had to give a verdict, I'd say he should be found guilty and sentenced to 10 years in prison, which is an extremely short sentence for a double murder and maiming of a cop, but warranted given the context.

I kinda like the power of jury nullification. With the pardon system non functioning it's the best left.

I never did see Mississippi Burning,

A serious, grown up film from the late '80s i.e. my formative years that sounds similar.

Was 1996 Alabama really THAT racist? Would the random average white person in Alabama at that time be considered racist enough by default that they would automatically side against any black defendant? Were there enough real, true, hardcore racists that the KKK could field 100+ protesters at a big racial trial?

I'm not sure that the movie is supposed to be set in 1996: the jury selection in particular only really makes sense either before Batson or in an alternate universe where it never happened.

That said, while the KKK (or connected actual-fascist networks) had lost much of their ability to bring out attendees by the mid-90s, one of the bigger offshoot's national headquarters was in Tuscarolla Alabama until they lost it in a court case in the late 1980s, and they could get 50+ members to a Northern rally as late as 1997.

If it's intended to be in the mid-1980s, it probably is trying to draw comparisons more akin to 1987, where 400 and 1000 "counterprotesters" (not all KKK, but enough to start violent fights). The aftermath of the civil suits from that era was a lot of what broke what little institutional support and administrative power remained for the KKK and other related groups.

I don't have great info on whether 1990s or 1980s white jurors would necessarily side against an African-American man regardless of the evidence in Alabama -- it's kinda overlooked but Batson did actually plea guilty and probably did do the thefts in that case -- but in a case like this one where the defendant unquestionably committed the acts I think the question of sympathy would be more relevant. (Though I am pretty skeptical that the jurors would have been as blatantly racist: it's also notable that in the original book, the "now imagine she's white" came from a juror. While Grisham made the whole story up wholesale that's what he believed what plausible for 1984.)

How differently, if at all, would such a trial be perceived today?

Preeettty heavily.

What is a proper punishment for the father, if any?

The ricochet on the police officer would be pretty conventional assault in the first degree in Alabama, a Class B Felony. There's not much specific sentencing guidelines for Alabama, but "Not less than two (2) years and not more than twenty (20) years imprisonment in the state penitentiary, including hard labor and may include a fine not to exceed $30,000." seems like a reasonable band. Given the severity of the injury (the officer loses a leg) and its forseability (the shooter had no backstop, in a crowded environment), I'd error on the higher side, but the victim's forgiveness makes me hesitant to say the highest side.

For the rapists... I've spoken about the risks of "needed killing" being a meaningful defense, but the flip side of that is that some people... well, I would be quite happy if they repent their ways and work the rest of their lives to try to pay for the evil they've done... but I'm not optimistic. I'd prefer clean cases of self-defense or defense-of-others, more significantly because they protect victims, but also for philosophical reasons. But I'm hard-pressed to believe it'd be possible for the father in this situation to have done something wrong, rather than merely not maximally laudable.

The flip side is that one of the serious dangers to vigilantism is getting it wrong. It's easy in a movie, where we 'know' what happened at the crime, but that's not how the world works. And homicide doesn't have a statute of limitations. This combination has some bad policy ramifications -- it's 'better' to try and find not-guilty a good man, and worse to try a case that risks having jeopardy attach before information shakes loose -- but I'm not sure there's a better one.

I'm not sure that the movie is supposed to be set in 1996: the jury selection in particular only really makes sense either before Batson or in an alternate universe where it never happened.

Per the novel's Wikipedia page, the events are set in 1984, two years before Batson.

...and I see that you sort of mention that with "plausible for 1984".

Yeah, apologies, should have spelled that out. The movie is based on a book published in 1989, which itself claims it was 'inspired by' a case that John Grisham had seen in 1984, though very few details or even broad strokes actually matched.

Was 1996 Alabama really THAT racist?

Something to keep in mind is that the book the movie was based on was written in the 80s and set some indeterminate ammount of time in the past.

I also suspect that there's a certain amount of "how Hollywood liberals imagine" the deep south vs "how it be" going on.

From watching the movie, there were a lot of clues (the fashion, the cars etc.) that it was not set in 1996. I would have guessed late 70's/early 80's (consistently with the publication date of the book).

John Grisham, the author of the book, is from Arkansas and Mississippi. He's not a Hollywood liberal.

That said, the description of the movie does sound like a Hollywood liberal adapted the book.

He's not a Hollywood liberal.

Not geographically, but his politics seem to be roughly standard Hollywood liberalism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Grisham#Political_activism

Opposing the death penalty, while also writing a sympathetic novel about black-on-white vigilante murder (race-swapping a real case) is also an amusing position.

His current political activism isn't super relevant to a book he wrote in 1989. Other plot points in the book that I think got removed from the Hollywood version:

  • This town elected a black sheriff who was respected by everyone.

  • The part of jury selection that was harmful wasn't that they were all white, but that they were white women.

At least based on my recollection of Grisham books from the 90's, I doubt he'd be taking the modern liberal position of "Fry Jose Alba".

https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/new-video-shows-girlfriend-stab-nyc-bodega-worker-after-confrontation-turned-deadly/3769959/

I doubt he'd be taking the modern liberal position of "Fry Jose Alba".

Who is saying that?

Left wing Soros prosecutors. Presumably the left wing voters who put them in office.

Screenplay by Akiva Goldsman from New York.

an infamous hack, even among hack Hollywood writers

A Beautiful Mind was okay, I guess.

I don't know anything about the production of the movie, but remember reading the book some time back in the late 90s / early 2000s because it was in a pile of cheap paper-backs and I was looking for something to read on a cross-country flight. I'm pretty sure I've caught bits of the movie on cable over the years but have never sat down and watched it start to finish. It would not surprise me at all to find out that Grisham wrote a story that was intended to harken back to the bad old days of "strange fruit" and the producers simply set it in [current year] out of laziness and because Hollywood.

I can say that FWIW Southern Alabama actually struck me as substantially less racist than California or anywhere in the northeast both when I was stationed there in the early 00s and when I went back there for work in the mid 10s.

My reactions to reading your synopsis:

  • This sounds like a social justice fantasy so outrageous that it borders on pornographic

  • This sounds like what might actually happen today if the races were swapped (and sure enough @Folamh3 says it was; do you have a link to the case?)

To your prompts:

  1. "No" to all those questions. Alabama in 1996 is much closer to Alabama in 2023 than to Alabama in 1926.

  2. Not very differently. Which is to say, both back then and today the jury would have been quite fair and just, unlike the ridiculous civil rights fantasy the movie portrays. Alabama today might actually be slightly less tolerant than Alabamians in 1996, since back then they were on board with "colorblind" race relations as a sort of truce. Now, racial identity politics and tribalism are on the rise, but I still don't think it would be enough to change how the trial would be handled.

  3. Light sentence for the murders of the two scumbags, and whatever the standard sentence is for unintentionally shooting someone.

Not very differently. Which is to say, both back then and today the jury would have been quite fair and just, unlike the ridiculous civil rights fantasy the movie portrays.

Like, this isn’t Alabama, and this is just one case, but I dunno, man.

The assailants did NOT think Chin was Japanese. They told a guy they'd pay him $20 to help them find "a Chinese guy".

My experience of autoworkers suggests that they do not know the difference between the various Asian ethnicities.

General experience doesn't really hold up against the actual attackers telling someone they were looking for a Chinese guy. As for Colwell, her testimony obtained her a lighter sentence in an unrelated matter.

Link: https://www.leagle.com/decision/19891862537so2d132511825

Thank you.

This sounds like a social justice fantasy so outrageous that it borders on pornographic

It's still a pretty good movie. Hollywood used to be a lot better at making their ideological messaging movies actually enjoyable as movies, too. True Believer or Runaway Jury come to mind as liberal/lefty propaganda (even my left liberal wife was a bit disgusted by the theory of the case in Runaway Jury's lawsuit, and she's as anti-gun as any given young liberal woman who doesn't know much about politics) that are also really enjoyable movies.

Hell, a lot of courtroom/law dramas from the 70s, 80s, and 90s have an almost unabashed liberal slant while still being good.

The problem with woke movies these days isn't necessarily the wokeness, it's that the writers seem to think the wokeness was enough and they forget to make the movie good.

The problem with woke movies these days isn't necessarily the wokeness, it's that the writers seem to think the wokeness was enough and they forget to make the movie good.

Hasn't that been discussed as intentional? That is to say, if the movie is good, you might catch a bunch of people who just like good movies with your signaling. If the movie is bad, the only reason to signal that you like it is to endorse the message.

This sounds like what might actually happen today if the races were swapped

Huh? You're saying if a white man murdered two black men that raped and tortured a white girl, an all-black jury would let the murderer off the hook entirely?

Oops, good catch, my wording was completely wrong. I meant that if two black men abused and killed a white child, I wouldn't be surprised for them to get away with a relatively light sentence.

Mohamed Bakari Shei just got sentenced to 180 days for raping a 9 and 4 year old. Fairly ridiculous, I'd agree.

The black guys who stabbed Tessa Majors to death got 14yrs, 9yrs, and 18 months respectively.

On one, an interesting parallel is Louisiana in the same time period, which infamously had a governors race in which a KKK grand wizard(David duke) lost to a known criminal(John Edwards) who made no effort to deny that he was a crook and coined the phrase ‘vote for the crook’. If that’s representative(it may not be), then cartoonish racism was clearly a minority position in the Deep South in the nineties.

Edwin Edwards

If I had to give a verdict, I'd say he should be found guilty and sentenced to 10 years in prison, which is an extremely short sentence for a double murder and maiming of a cop, but warranted given the context.

The maiming of the cop is the part I'm going to need him to do time for. I really can't imagine myself ever convicting a man for vigilantism targeted at the rapists of his daughters, but I do begrudge him the risk of killing someone innocent. I'm not really a fan of prison sentence structuring of punishment and would prefer some brief, hard sentence followed by financial restitution to the victim. I'm not clear what purpose is served better by ten years in jail than two.

My own addendum

3.5: How does your answer change based on the fact that the vigilantism happened before the men were tried?

Having not seen the movie and just going on your description, I think I would be somewhat harsh on the father because he didn't even give the justice system a chance. If the men had been tried, found not guilty or gotten away with a slap on the wrist, and then the father killed them, I'd be inclined to give a similar punishment of ~10 years. Similarly if the police had failed to arrest them in the first place. I'd think that the father did the right thing morally in killing them, but that the law needs to be enforced and have consequences, and he can do his time in exchange for having his morally justified revenge.

But he didn't even let them get to trial. And, given that the all white and kind of racist jury did in fact find him not guilty, this implies that they would have been even more likely to find the original criminals guilty if he had let them (technically it would probably be a different jury, but in the same area statistically it would have the same representation).

I think vigilantism after the justice system has already failed you is much more defensible than vigilantism in anticipation of the justice system failing, unless there is a clear and repeated pattern such that you reliably know it will fail, which a single prior case does not establish. The father should get a fairly harsh sentence. Still less than an unprovoked double homicide would warrant, but quite a bit more than I would think fair for a vigilante attack when the perpetrators were not literally in police custody.

I think I would be somewhat harsh on the father because he didn't even give the justice system a chance. If the men had been tried, found not guilty or gotten away with a slap on the wrist, and then the father killed them, I'd be inclined to give a similar punishment of ~10 years.

I would take the opposite view.

If the justice system has found a person not guilty, that person must be entitled to the full protection of the criminal law. We can't allow vigilantes who disagree with juries to take matters into their own hands and go after people our justice system is unable to prove actually committed an offence.

To do the opposite would impliedly be saying: "despite or because of all our criminal procedure rules and constitutional protections designed to ensure consistency and fairness, we have been unable to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that this person guilty. Nonetheless, we'll look the other way if different judge decides they probably were guilty anyway".

By what process could this second judge make the decision? Would they hear representations from advocates in advance and declare people found not guilty to be outlaws? Or retry the original allegations a second time as a trial within a trial once vigilante justice has been done, but without the testimony of the newly deceased? And by what evidential standard should this judgement be made? If 12 disinterested strangers were not sure beyond a reasonable doubt that a person was guilty, how sure must a judge be to declare them an outlaw after their deaths?

However disgusted we may be when our justice system lets a guilty man walk, we must remember that it was set up in this way on purpose: "it is better 100 guilty Persons should escape than that one innocent Person should suffer".

I think the most forceful justification for Blackstone's ratio came from John Adams while defending British soldiers charged with murder for their role in the Boston Massacre:

"We find, in the rules laid down by the greatest English Judges, who have been the brightest of mankind; We are to look upon it as more beneficial, that many guilty persons should escape unpunished, than one innocent person should suffer. The reason is, because it’s of more importance to community, that innocence should be protected, than it is, that guilt should be punished; for guilt and crimes are so frequent in the world, that all of them cannot be punished; and many times they happen in such a manner, that it is not of much consequence to the public, whether they are punished or not. But when innocence itself, is brought to the bar and condemned, especially to die, the subject will exclaim, it is immaterial to me, whether I behave well or ill; for virtue itself, is no security. And if such a sentiment as this, should take place in the mind of the subject, there would be an end to all security what so ever."

To be clear, my stance only applies when (a subcomponent of) the justice system is clearly and obviously corrupt. If you have a corrupt local judge/jury that can simply try murderers and declare them not guilty, which with double jeopardy makes them not guilty permanently, then what you have is worse than there literally being no local justice system, because it actively protects murderers from higher courts. I don't think prosecutors have an appeal process to higher courts when they get an unjust "not-guilty" unless there's some clear explicit corruption beyond "hopelessly racist jury".

Now, obviously there are better solutions to the detecting and ousting of corrupt local courts than just allowing vigilantism. But, conditional on someone finding themself in a situation in which the courts are clearly and obviously corrupt and the higher courts have not yet noticed or cared enough to fix the issue, then vigilantism might be the trigger needed to make them care. And, if the higher court finds that "whoops, this guy was obviously guilty, the court was negligent in finding them not guilty, and we should have stopped this corruption a long time ago, sorry", then it would be appropriate to lessen the sentence of the vigilante.

The four major goals of punishment are

1: retribution

2:rehabilitation

3:deterrence

4: incapacitation

Conditional on the higher courts finding that the victims were clearly and obviously guilty and only got free due to corruption, most of these goals don't apply to the vigilante. Retribution is less necessary because the victims, being murderous scum, deserved what they got and don't need to avenged. Rehabilitation isn't especially necessary because the vigilante is not broken or morally corrupt, they know right from wrong and only acted in violence against murderous scum. Similarly, incapacitation is entirely unnecessary: they are not at risk of re-offending unless someone else decides to kidnap and rape their daughter.

Deterrence could go either way depending on how far you generalize the behavior and the obviousness of the injustice the vigilante is fixing. We want to deter wannabe heroes who take the law into their own hands after they don't get their way in a fair trial. But I contend that vigilantism is a just and beneficial response in a corrupt system. First, imagine an oppressive regime in some foreign dictatorship rather than the American justice system, I would think it clear that if the law does not protect you then protecting yourself is better than simply bowing and being oppressed. Then imagine small pockets in America where the American justice system is secretly replaced by courts run by the evil dictatorship. Therefore, deterring vigilantism in that tiny subset of scenarios is actively bad, because it's very important to deter real criminals, and it's better that vigilantes deter them than literally no one. Vigilantism is bad only in healthy societies where the police are already fulfilling the role of deterring criminals to the point that adding vigilantes has diminishing returns and creates too many false positives to be worth it.

Blackstone's maxim was that it's better that ten guilty escape rather than one innocent suffer, not 100 guilty. I don't think it has much to do with El Salvador; it wasn't overly stringent standards in criminal trials resulting in gang members running free.

This film came up maybe last week in an unrelated discussion, and one poster had an interesting tidbit. The film is based on the novel of the same name by John Grisham, who in turn based it on a real gang rape trial he'd been involved in. However, the case revolved around two black men one black man who stood accused of raping a white girl two white girls.

Link: https://www.leagle.com/decision/19891862537so2d132511825

However, the case revolved around two black men who stood accused of raping a white girl.

One black man and two white girls. In Mississippi, in 1984. And the defendant was found guilty, and no vigilante father was involved. It was eventually appealed to the Mississippi Supreme Court

Thanks, fixed.

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