Annotated Bibliography: Race and Justice in A Time to Kill

Annotated Bibliography

Chicago Freedom Movement staff writers. Issues then and now: Crime and the Criminal Justice System. Loyola University, Chicago, 2013. Web. Accessed on 8 November 2013. http://www.luc.edu/curl/cfm40/issue8.html

This source was chosen because it focused on the issues of race and law in regards to the modern-day, but also its connection to the past. The significance of learning from the past is to see where the law was originally from, if it’s changed at all, and if it is improved since its conception. Many laws have not changed, but some, like black slaves being counted as three-fifths of a person, have changed.

Hamilton, Keith. Race in the Judicial System. BYU Law School, 2009. Web. Accessed on 8 November 2013. www.law2.byu.edu/news/item.php?num=371

This source was excellent because it was written from a different perspective, and offered an interesting analysis regarding racism and racial prejudice from an actual law student who had done first-hand research on the topic.

Hampton, Chris, and Kien Lee. Strategies and Activities for Reducing Racial Prejudice and Racism. Community Tool Box, 2013. Web. Accessed on 8 November 2013. http://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/culture/cultural-competence/reduce-prejudice-racism/main

This source was used because it had examples that were reflective of modern society, not just against blacks, but other racial minorities, such as Latino and Asian communities. This source specifically sites the Hmong in one of their examples, and this was used because of the lack of knowledge of the English language, to compare and contrast between what blacks have suffered through in America.

Linder, Doug. The Trials of Los Angeles Police Officers’ in Connection with the Beating of Rodney King. University Missouri, Kansas City, 2001. Web. Accessed 8 November 2013. http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/lapd/lapdaccount.html

The main focus of this paper was the mirror that A Time to Kill held up to the Rodney King beating and subsequent trial. This website was perfectly relevant because it focused on both sides of the issue, not just the “black” or the “white” side, but how everyone acted and reacted during the beatings and trials.

Maslin, Janet. A Time to Kill (1996): Film Review; A Father’s Revenge for His Child’s Rape. New York Times, 1996. Web. Accessed on 8 November 2013. http://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9C03EED81639F937A15754C0A960958260

This source was used because it was not only written right after the movie was released in theaters, so it has a timely quality not tainted by the more modern papers, but because it was well written and posed an interesting question about the ethics of the characters and their approaches to the law.

Roberts, Dorothy. Constructing a Criminal Justice System Free of Racial Bias: An Abolitionist Framework. Columbia Law School, 2008. Web. Accessed on 8 November 2013. http://www3.law.columbia.edu/hrlr/hrlr_journal/39.1/Roberts_preview.pdf

This was briefly touched upon in this paper, but as a source, it was invaluable. Putting the law into perspective, it helped to show that many laws and the law itself are inherently racist, and if we shined the right light on it, and reviewed it without prejudice, we could then start to change it.

YouTube User fragglesrarities. A Time to Kill: Interviews, 1997. Uploaded 2011. Web. Accessed 8 November 2013. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4yahJA7De8

This was a primary example of the reactions of the actors to the hard themes of racism and racial prejudice. Just as the audience can take meaning away from a film, so can the actors and actresses who are in it. The four main actors who gave short interviews reacted to the main theme of racism and what is justice, as opposed to vengeance.