Law Abiding Citizen
The movie, Law Abiding Citizen, begins with a man and his daughter at a table working on individual products. A woman, presumably his wife, is in the kitchen preparing dinner when there is a knock at the door. The man answers the door and is immediately assaulted with a baseball bat. He is then tied up and stabbed with a knife. Bound on the floor, he watches one of the two assailants beat and rape his wife. His daughter who is watching from the other room is carried off by one of the assailants. The movie fades to black as if the man has lost consciousness.
The next scene is of two men discussing their careers and ambitions. From the conversation, we are led to believe they are lawyers which is confirmed when we see a team of them discussing cases, research, and deciding who will try which cases. Nick, one of the duo we were introduced to earlier, is summoned by the DA (Cantrell) who wants information about the Shelton case. Cantrell is told by Nick that the case went sideways due to an imperfect system. He references a particular judge, Judge Burch, leading the audience to believe this may be why the case “went sideways”. Nick states that they should make a deal in spite of the little girl having been killed. He doesn’t want to chance losing the case. He states that “some justice is better than no justice at all”.
We are then taken to a room where Nick is sitting with the husband, Clyde, the man from the first scene of the movie. Nick proceeds to tell Clyde that one of the two men who assaulted his family has agreed to testify against the other. Clyde seems confused about this decision and wants to know what will happen to Darby if he testifies against Ames. He is told that Darby will plead guilty of 3 rd degree murder and will probably serve 5yrs. It is then that we find out that the judge ruled that the DNA evidence is inadmissible under the exclusionary rule. This is a legal principle which holds that evidence collected or analyzed in violation of the
The next scene is of two men discussing their careers and ambitions. From the conversation, we are led to believe they are lawyers which is confirmed when we see a team of them discussing cases, research, and deciding who will try which cases. Nick, one of the duo we were introduced to earlier, is summoned by the DA (Cantrell) who wants information about the Shelton case. Cantrell is told by Nick that the case went sideways due to an imperfect system. He references a particular judge, Judge Burch, leading the audience to believe this may be why the case “went sideways”. Nick states that they should make a deal in spite of the little girl having been killed. He doesn’t want to chance losing the case. He states that “some justice is better than no justice at all”.
We are then taken to a room where Nick is sitting with the husband, Clyde, the man from the first scene of the movie. Nick proceeds to tell Clyde that one of the two men who assaulted his family has agreed to testify against the other. Clyde seems confused about this decision and wants to know what will happen to Darby if he testifies against Ames. He is told that Darby will plead guilty of 3 rd degree murder and will probably serve 5yrs. It is then that we find out that the judge ruled that the DNA evidence is inadmissible under the exclusionary rule. This is a legal principle which holds that evidence collected or analyzed in violation of the