The film A Time to kill is a 1980s film set in the Southern United States seeking to examine how race and empathy affect the US justice system. Carl Lee, a black American, kills two white men who raped his daughter, Tonya Hailey. He was afraid that the court would acquit the men responsible since it was against whites. Carl Lee is arrested, and he hires a white lawyer Jake Brigance to defend him. Jake wins the case by using an appeal to empathy. He describes the rape scene and finally gaining empathy from the jury by asking them what if it was a white girl.
Using an inductive argument, Carl is right. He reasons using broader generalizations that the racist jury will acquit the men responsible for raping his daughter. His reasoning is right as the jury has always acquitted white men. Carl has reasoned critically to make sure he gets empathy from Jake by explaining how justice was hard for a black man to attain in Ford County. From the class readings, Carl has used an inductive form of reasoning to justify his murder and get away with it by making the jury see from his perspective.
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I don’t believe Jake was Carl’s enemy. It’s an empiric generalization that has made Carl argue that just because Jake was born white, he will always see Carl differently, and their kids will never mingle. This statement from Carl stereotypes Jake because of him being white. Carl's reasoning is also persuasive but unsound, which makes some of his statement fallacious. The fallacy argument is generalizing that the jury will always deny justice to black folks. The generalization of the entire jury that they will make a decision based on Carl's color is unsound. Not all jurors are the same, and some may not base their judgment on the accused's color. Carl believed that the jury was likely to find him guilty because he is black.
