Experience a Time You'll Never Forget
What is it in us that seeks the truth?
Is it our minds or is it our
hearts?
[Jake Tyler Brigance]
And until we can see each other as equals, justice is never going to be
even-handed.
It will remain nothing more than a reflection of our own
prejudices.
[Jake Tyler Brigance]
[Jake Tyler Brigance]: We're
going to lose this case, Carl Lee.
There are no more points of law
to argue here.
I want
to cope a plea, maybe Buckley will cop us a
second degree murder and we can get you just life in prison.
[Carl Lee Hailey]: Jake, I can't do no life in prison. You got to get me off.
Now if it was
you on trial...
[Jake Tyler Brigance]: It's not me, we're not the same, Carl Lee.
The jury has to identify with
the defendant.
They see you, they see a yardworker; they see me, they
see an attorney.
I live in town, you live in the hill.
[Carl Lee Hailey]: Well, you are white and I'm black.
See Jake, you think just like them,
that's why I picked you;
you are one of them , don't you see?
Oh, you
think you ain't because you eat in Claude's and you are out there trying
to get me off on TV talking about black and white, but the fact is you
are just like all the rest of them.
When you look at me, you don't see a
man, you see a black man.
[Jake Tyler Brigance]: Carl Lee, I'm your friend.
[Carl Lee Hailey]: We ain't no friends, Jake.
We are on different sides of the line, I
ain't never seen you in my part of town.
I bet you don't even know where
I live.
Our daughters, Jake; they ain't never gonna play together.
[Jake Tyler Brigance]: What are you talking about?
[Carl Lee Hailey]: America is a wall and you are on the other side.
How's a black man ever
going to get a fair trial with the enemy on the bench and in the jury
box? My life in white hands? You Jake, that's how.
You are my secret
weapon because you are one of the bad guys.
You don't mean to be but you
are. It's how you was raised.
Nigger, negro, black, African-american,
no matter how you see me, you see me different,
you see me like that
jury sees me, you are them.
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?
That's how you save my ass. That's how you save us both.
[Lucien Wilbanks]: You wanted this case, well you've got it.
It isn't easy saving the world
even one case at a time, but you stick with it.
You just might have a
knack for it.
Don't do what I did. Don't quit.
[Jake Tyler Brigance]: What are you talking about, quit. You're a hero Lucien.
[Lucien Wilbanks]: Hero my ass.
Do you think the world needed me beating cops heads on that
picket line.
I was needed here. In that courtroom.
And I let them push
me, I gave them an excuse to kick me out and now I can never plead a
case in there again.
But you can. You're an attorney. Be proud.
Your job
is to find justice no matter how well she may hide herself from you. So
you go on in there and you do your job.
[Jake Tyler Brigance]: I can't be you, Lucian.
[Lucien Wilbanks]: Don't be me, Jake. Be better than me.
If you win this case, justice will prevail, and if you lose, justice
will also prevail.
Now that is a strange case.
[Lucien Wilbanks]
I can not promise you riches.
What I can offer you the chance to save
the world one case at a time.
[Lucien Wilbanks]
I want to tell you a story.
I'm going to ask you all to close your eyes
while I tell you the story.
I want you to listen to me. I want you to
listen to yourselves.
Go ahead. Close your eyes, please.
This is a story
about a little girl walking home from the grocery store one sunny
afternoon.
I want you to picture this little girl.
Suddenly a truck
races up. Two men jump out and grab her.
They drag her into a nearby
field and they tie her up and they rip her clothes from her body. Now
they climb on.
First one, then the other, raping her, shattering
everything innocent and pure with a vicious thrust in a fog of drunken
breath and sweat.
And when they're done, after they've killed her tiny
womb, murdered any chance for her to have children, to have life beyond
her own, they decide to use her for target practice.
They start throwing
full beer cans at her.
They throw them so hard that it tears the flesh
all the way to her bones.
Then they urinate on her.
Now comes the
hanging. They have a rope. They tie a noose.
Imagine the noose going
tight around her neck and with a sudden blinding jerk she's pulled into
the air and her feet and legs go kicking.
They don't find the ground.
The hanging branch isn't strong enough. It snaps and she falls back to
the earth.
So they pick her up, throw her in the back of the truck and
drive out to Foggy Creek Bridge.
Pitch her over the edge. And she drops
some thirty feet down to the creek bottom below.
Can you see her?
Her
raped, beaten, broken body soaked in their urine, soaked in their semen,
soaked in her blood, left to die.
Can you see her?
I want you to
picture that little girl.
Now imagine she's white.
[Jake Tyler Brigance]
*****
