On her way to the grocery store, 10-year-old black Tanya is abducted by two white boys. F***ed her. When she isn't home two hours later, her mother gets worried.
She calls her husband at work, and when he comes home, he finds his little girl on the couch in the living room with a crowd of relatives huddled around her, covered in blood and beaten up. Tanya told her mother what happened, and when Carl Lee hears it, he is shocked and determined to take revenge. Tanya is taken to the hospital, and her condition is critical.
Meanwhile, the two boys, Billy Ray Cobb and Pete Willard are caught, and they have confessed. During a preliminary hearing, it was determined that there was enough evidence to bind the defendants over to the grand jury. Carl Lee is in the audience and decides to take revenge on the two bastards who hurt his daughter so much. After the hearing, he goes to see Jake Briggance, a local lawyer who helped his brother, Lester Haley, before. He asks Jake what he would do if his little girl was raped, and Jake tells him he would kill the rapists.
From that moment on, Carl Lee's mind was made up. When the Ford County Courthouse is closed on Friday, Carl Lee is hiding in a restroom when they lock the courthouse. He studies the building, and when he's done, he leaps through a window into the darkness. The next day, Saturday, around noon, he goes to the lounge with his brother, owned by an old friend of his, Cat Bruster. They fought together in Vietnam, and Carl Lee saved his life.
That's why Cat owes Carl Lee a favor. Carl Lee needs a gun, an M16. Cat gives it to him.
The next Monday, May 20. Carl Lee isn't in the courtroom during the hearing about Cobb and Willard's bail. He's hiding in a closet in the hall, and when Cobb and Willard come out of the courtroom, Carl Lee jumps forward and starts shooting. He accidentally shoots a deputy in the leg, but the rapists scream when they are hit and fall down the stairs while Carl Lee continues shooting. When he's sure Cobb and Willard are dead, he drops the gun and goes home. A couple of hours later, the sheriff, Ozzy Walls, comes there to pick him up and take him to the police station.
From that moment on, The city is divided between people who think Carl Lee shouldn't be convicted for this act because the rapist deserved it and people who think that murder is murder, and Carl Lee should be sent to the gas chamber. Black people also think Carl Lee wouldn't be convicted if he were a white man who killed two black men. So this murder case becomes a racial case as well.
Carl Lee hires Jake to defend him. The press is also on top of it, and Clanton, once so calm and quiet, is flooded with journalists. Jake was interviewed and is now known by everybody.
The next morning, He receives his first threatening call, and that isn't the last one. His secretary also receives threatening calls. The day after the preliminary hearing, Lucienne comes to Jake's office.
Lucienne is a lawyer, and he transferred his office to Jake and now enjoys his free time. He advises Jake to ask for a change of venue to a county with more black citizens to try to get a more black jury, and he also gives him hints for his defense, for example, to plead insanity to get Carl Lee off. Prison doesn't bother Carl Lee that much.
He plays cards with Ozzy and gets a lot of visitors. Outside the prison, Jake is working hard with Lucienne and Harry Rex, a friend of his who gets information on everything. He heard that with the indictment, the votes were even, which meant Carl Lee almost got off. The next day, the judge of Carl Lee's case, Omar Noose, decides together with Buckley, the public prosecutor, and Jake when the case will go to court, on July 22. Kat also heard of the case, and he comes to visit Carl Lee in jail with a proposal. The cat will give him a lot of money if he takes his lawyer, Bo Marsharfsky, to defend him.
Marsharfsky is well known as a good lawyer who gets off the toughest criminals. Carl Lee hesitates, but eventually, he does it. Jake is disappointed, but after a couple of days, Carl Lee asks him to defend him again because Marsharfsky doesn't help him.
Meanwhile, Clanton gets more and more uneasy. Freddie Cobb, Billy Ray's brother, organizes a meeting of the Ku Klux Klan, and the Klan becomes active again in Clanton. At the same time, The black people organized a meeting of the Council of Ministers, a group of black preachers formed to coordinate political activities in the black communities of Ford County.
They agree that they have to give help to Carl Lee in the form of demonstrations, and they have to collect money to pay for a good lawyer from the NAACP, an organization with the best lawyers who fight to keep black people from death row, to get Carl Lee off. Then the threatening calls become actions. After a phone call from an informant in the Ku Klux Klan, Mickey Mouse, Deputy Marshal Prather wakes Jake in the middle of the night to tell him there is a burning cross in his garden. Now Jake gets worried about his family. He wants his wife Carla and daughter Hannah to go to Carla's parents for six weeks until the trial is over.
Carla doesn't want to go, although Jake doesn't have much time for her. He is busy now trying to find a psychiatrist who is willing to plead insanity for Carly to win his case. Eventually, he finds Dr. W.T. Boss, who is prepared to do so, but this man isn't so reliable.
He drinks very much and has no good past. Carl Lee is also examined by the state's psychiatrists, who say he is healthy. Things get more and more difficult for Jake.
To make things worse, a lawyer from the NAACP, Norman Reinfeldt, shows up and wants to take over Jake's job, but fortunately, Carl Lee doesn't want that to happen. So this ends well, but that same night, An anonymous phone call comes in at the police station warning of a bomb in Jake's house. The sheriff goes to the house immediately and wakes Jake and his family.
Carla and Hannah leave quickly, and Carl Lee and Ozzy wait until somebody shows up to blow up the house. When the suspect comes, they surprise him and make him defuse the bomb. After that, it still isn't over.
The next day, Noose calls Jake into his office to tell him he denies a change of venue. Meanwhile, the trial is only two weeks away. After the incident with the bomb, Carla and Hannah did leave it with Carla's parents because she thought it got too dangerous. Jake lets the case slip off more and more until, 10 days before the trial, a last-year law student introduces herself to him, Ellen Rourke.
She tells Jake she's heard a lot about the case and wants to help him with it for free. Jake likes that idea and hires her. She is a really big help to him.
One week before the trial, a list is made of all the potential members of the jury. It is a secret, and nobody is supposed to know the names to protect the members. But that same day.
Harry Rex got a list of the jury members, and he also made notes on the names. For the people Harry Rex didn't know, Jake asks for information from other people, and this is how he gets a lead on Buckley. While Jake is gathering information, he gets a phone call that Bud, Ethel's husband, is being beaten up by the KKK. They also put burning crosses in the gardens of 20 people to discourage them from becoming members of the jury.
Little by little, Clanton is becoming a madhouse. All hotels are booked full during the week of the trial by journalists. Buses full of thousands of black people gather around the courthouse, and they demonstrate with plates that say Free Carl Lee. When the Ku Klux Klan finds out about this, they start their demonstration march.
The black people don't tolerate this, and the groups start to fight. One day before the trial, extra troops from the National Guard come to Clanton to keep the expected riots under control. On the morning of the trial, the trouble had already started. The black people are still gathered around the courthouse when the Klansmen come, yelling Fry Carl Lee.
The troops have to stand between the two groups to prevent them from fighting. In the courtroom, the selection of members of the jury starts. Jake and Buckley are allowed to interrogate them to pick the best jury.
After two days, the jury is picked. It is an all-white jury, which isn't so good for Carl Lee. Because it is such a big trial, the members of the jury aren't allowed to go home, but they have to stay in a motel during the trial, so they can't give information about the case to outsiders and can't be influenced. At first, The members of the jury thought it was a great civic duty to be on the jury, but now that they are put away in some motel far away from civilization and not allowed to have contact with other people, they don't like it anymore.
That same day, Stump Sisson, the clan's imperial wizard, dies in the hospital of Burns caught during the fight between the black people and the clan. When the jury is picked, the trial starts. At first, the lawyers introduce themselves, and then the witnesses are heard.
Jake tries to use as an important element in the murder case. Buckley doesn't like this. On the fifth day of the trial, Friday, things get dangerous. That morning, a Klansman shoots at Jake on his way to the courthouse from an old, abandoned feed mill just outside the town, but fortunately, he is pulled down to the ground just in time by a group of guardsmen, but one of them is hit.
He later died in the hospital. Because of all the commotion that day, the trial is in recess, and Noost decides the trial will continue on Saturday. That night, when Ellen is on her way to Oxford to change clothes, she is pulled over by Klansmen.
They mistreat her and scare the hell out of her. When the Klan is gone, Mickey Mouse comes out of the bushes and tells the police where they can find Ellen. This is his last favor for the people in Klampen because, after this, the Klan finds out he is an informant and kills him.
The next morning, Dr. WT Boss is the first witness. Everything goes well until Buckley starts talking about his past. He finds out that Boss was once convicted of statutory r**p. Jake didn't know about this and is mixed up when he hears about it because Boss was his star witness, and now he sees no way at all to win this case.
He requests a recess. During that recess, Ozzy tells Jake what happened to Ellen, and now Jake gets so confused, he wants to quit the case. Lucienne convinces him that eventually, he can't do that because Carl Lee depends on him.
When Noose hears about Ellen, he decides to take this day off and continue the trial on Monday, but it isn't over yet. Nesbitt, the deputy who has to protect Jake, hears on the car radio that Jake's house is on fire. He drives him over there right away, but the fire can't be stopped.
The house burns down completely, and the dog dies in the sea of flames. On Sunday, Jake goes to the hospital to visit Ellen. She is going to be alright, her wounds aren't so serious. In the hospital, Jake meets Ellen's father, Sheldon Rourke, a famous lawyer, who gives him some hints about the case.
On Monday morning, the trial starts again. The first witness is the state's psychiatrist, who testifies Carl Lee was in good mental health during the shooting. But Jake enfeebles his testimony by proving this psychiatrist has never testified a person was insane. Although he has had 46 cases, and some of those people weren't in good mental health. That afternoon, Buckley and Jake have their closing arguments, and then it's time for the jury to reach a verdict.
That day they weren't able to do so, so the trial was decided to continue the next day. That night, two important things happened. Lucienne bribed one of the members of the jury, Clyde Sisko, to make sure Carl Lee wouldn't be sent to the gas chamber. And another member of the jury, Barry Acker, is intimidated in the motel by a member of the Klan. who tells him his family will die if Carl Lee gets acquitted.
On Tuesday, the jury continues trying to reach a verdict, while outside, a crowd of black people is having a demonstration for Carl Lee. At the end of the day, they still don't know what to do. Five people plead not guilty, five plead guilty, and two haven't decided yet. On Wednesday, the jury finally reached a verdict, because of the help of one woman on the jury, Wanda Womack, who told the members of the jury to imagine what they would do if their child had been f***ed.
And that's how the jury decided to acquit Carl Lee and finally reunited with his family. And that's a wrap up for today. Comment down your views for the movie using hashtag FilmoRecaps. Stay healthy and stay safe.