“Justice is blind. Guilt sees everything.” The subtitle of Clint Eastwood’s film, “Juror number 2,” puts its finger on the sore spot of one of the bioethical dilemmas that cloud reflection and illuminate the darkest side of human beings. The legal thriller places us before the value of personal responsibility and the limits of freedom when civic duty collides with personal salvation and irreparable damage to another’s life is at stake. The film emphasizes the fallibility of justice, the function of guilt, the slippery slope of the lesser evil, and questions whether we all deserve second chances. The self-revealing power of love opens a gap to hope when everything seems to be collapsing under our feet.
Justin Kemp (Nicholas Hoult) is a young alcoholic in recovery who is about to become a father, after the trauma of his wife Ally’s (Zoey Deutch) miscarriage, who is pregnant with twins. The woman’s new high-risk pregnancy does not prevent Justin from participating as a juror in the murder case of Kendall Carter (Francesca Eastwood), in which her partner, James Sythe (Gabriel Basso), a man with a history of domestic violence, is prosecuted. After a public argument between the two in a bar, the woman walks away alone, at night and in the middle of a storm. The next day, Kendall is found dead next to a stream, near a local road. James, who declares himself innocent, is initially believed only by his public defender. The case also presents itself as a key opportunity for the prosecutor, Toni Collette (Faith Killebrew), on the verge of getting a promotion in her judicial career. The apparent simplicity of the process is complicated from the first day of the trial because on the night of the events, Justin Kemp remembers that he had been in that same bar, he had some scenes from that argument in his memory and, most disturbingly, he had driven on the same road. He even had to stop the car suddenly because he thought he had hit something. The darkness and the rain prevented the young man from seeing what had really happened and the existence of a traffic sign warning of the frequent crossing of deer led him to conclude that he had hit a deer. But, as the presentation of the facts in the trial progresses, Kemp becomes aware that he may not have run over a deer, but rather be the real person responsible for Kendall’s death.
From that moment on, Justin Kemp faces the moral dilemma of influencing the verdict of the jury of which he is a part to convict or free James Sythe from an almost certain sentence of life imprisonment, or to admit his personal responsibility for the events. This alternative could expose the protagonist to the charge of murder by hitting and failing to provide assistance. After a confidential consultation with a lawyer and friend, he is convinced that his history of alcoholism will make the deer story implausible and, about to become a father, he could spend the rest of his life in prison. Kemp is not so far from what happens to James Sythe, who is blamed for his violent history and membership in a drug trafficking gang, although he claims to have overcome these behaviors for love. Ally, Justin Kemp’s wife, like Kendall, James Sythe’s partner, now murdered, had discovered who deserved a second chance and the power of self-revelation of love, together with trust, seemed to have brought a second chance to the two men.
Ethical crossroads
Does everyone deserve a second chance? This is another of the bioethical conflicts in Clint Eastwood’s film, which, at 94 years of age, has been able to turn a script by Jonathan Abrams, written almost fifteen years ago, into a new work of art on a par with films such as Twelve Angry Men (1957), the multi-award-winning legal drama by Sidney Lumet. Eastwood’s new film, which could well be his last film, puts the emphasis on bioethical issues that are as current as they are deeply rooted in our society. In this sense, the moral conflict between the value of personal responsibility and the limits of freedom, when civic duty collides with personal salvation and irreparable harm to another is at stake, is accompanied by other important ethical dilemmas. For example, whether there are people who deserve second chances and others who do not. That is, whether mistakes condemn us to a life in a single act from which we will never be able to recover, which would limit forgiveness and determine that people cannot change.
Another crossroads that is raised in the film is the slippery slope of accepting without sufficient consideration the criterion of the lesser evil as collateral damage to resolve ethical conflicts. In this case, the lesser evil would have as its main consequence declaring an innocent person guilty so that nothing interferes with Justin Kemp’s life plans, considering these more important than those of the accused, James Sythe. This is an unviable ethical option, as we will see towards the end of this film reading.
The function of guilt that cries out to the conscience, the need for reparation is a constant in the daily life of Justin Kemp who tries to hide from everyone and, particularly, from his wife the inner hell he goes through in the trial sessions and in the deliberations as a jury. Guilt mixed with fear contributes to constant changes and contradictions in the moments of deliberation. Sometimes, Kemp introduces reasonable doubts in the rest of his colleagues in order not to condemn the accused and, at other times, he contradicts himself and resorts to manipulation to influence guilt. We only have access to what happens in the conscience of this person through the doubtful, insecure and nervous glances or the restless hands of a tortured character who handles himself clumsily and anxiously toys with a coin that illustrates the battle between good and evil, the laws or the illusion of chance. But, in effect, guilt sees everything, even if justice can be blind.
The imperfection of justice
Precisely, the theme of personal fallibility is joined as a central ethical issue by the blindness and imperfection of human justice that can lead to errors. Thus, the hyperbole of the highest virtue of justice represented in the female figure of the Greek goddess Themis with her eyes covered as a sign of impartiality and equality before the law, is transposed in this film as the origin of the greatest evil: the blindness that prevents seeing the truth and has a dramatic consequence in the judicial errors for which innocent people pay. In fact, the image of Themis appears recurrently in different key moments of the film.
Clint Eastwood invites us to follow the moral tribulations of the characters of the popular jury, constructed with a psychological depth that reveals their darkest motivations and ethical conflicts, through the particular versions of what is correct. This contaminates the vision of a reality that is presented as hazy due to prejudices acquired from difficult-to-overcome life experiences, needs and expectations. Can someone who lost his brother at eighteen years old for belonging to the same drug trafficking gang as the accused be impartial? Can a woman or a man empathize with the accused, after learning that he left his partner in the middle of the night and in the rain, after an argument? Or to what extent can objectivity be lost due to external and internal pressures to reach a common verdict as soon as possible, either due to personal urgency or due to the needs and resources of the system? But at the same time, it is necessary to ask whether these are sufficiently compelling arguments to condemn someone to life imprisonment with biases in the investigation and evidence provided that is not conclusive, as will be revealed in the film.
The American filmmaker, with complete control of the tension and rhythm of the film, keeps the attention of the spectator intact, who waits until the end for the twist in the script or a turn that facilitates deliberation. But, as happens in great films and in the best classic cinema, one leaves the cinema with more questions than answers. However, the film, although it may seem otherwise, is not at all full of desolation. The gap of hope is in the psychological evolution of the female character of the prosecutor, Toni Collette; in the capacity for unconditional love of Ally, Justin’s teacher and wife; and in the birth of their daughter, towards the end of an open film that suggests the possibility of a new and hopeful beginning.
A look from personalist bioethics
Personalist bioethics contributes to broadening our perspectives and guiding choices to avoid collapse and paralysis in the face of some ethical dilemmas such as those raised in this film, which expose the extreme fallibility of people and some of the systems that states provide to organize life in common. Responsibility is an ethical criterion superior to the temptation of personal salvation through manipulation, lies or the argument of individual freedom to act arbitrarily. Precisely, the principle of freedom and responsibility defends that the former cannot be considered as pure initiative or exclusive autonomy, but rather that one must responsibly take charge of one’s own life and that of others.
In this context, the search for moral good is the main reference that must guide ethical deliberation in order not to carry out malevolent actions and forces us to stop any conscious harm that we may cause to ourselves and others[1]. This foundation also affects the criterion of the lesser evil or the possible good when it comes to choosing between moral evils, considering that this type of harm cannot be the object of direct choice and the good or feasible end cannot be achieved through bad actions [2].
In contrast to pragmatic-utilitarian models or subjectivist models in which action falls either on the calculation of cost/benefit or the autonomous option is elevated as the only foundation of moral action, the personalist bioethical model defends the rooting of ethical judgment in truth. This implies a “continuous confrontation and willingness to recognize one’s own errors” [3] and a non-reductionist anthropological model that places at the center the defense of personal dignity, the spiritual, intellectual and moral character of the person, as well as the human capacity to consciously rework reality and channel actions in the best way.
According to Robert Spaemann, “justice is not enough to do justice to man (…) Doing justice goes beyond justice. It requires two different things: knowledge and love, understood as benevolence in wanting to give others what is good for oneself (…) Acting means producing effects (…) It is, after all, the old question of whether the end justifies the means (…) What goes against piety, against the respect due to man, against good manners, must be considered impossible”[4]. The philosopher suggests that when one feels like doing something whose consequences harm a third party, then we can consider the consequences and ask ourselves if it is fair to act like that and if we can answer for that act, without harming ourselves. We are faced with a masterfully made film that should not be missed.
Amparo Aygües – Master’s Degree in Bioethics from the Catholic University of Valencia – Member of the Bioethics Observatory – Catholic University of Valencia
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[1] Sgreccia, E. (2012). Bioethics Manual I. Madrid: BAC, pp.218-222.
[2] Ibid, p.235.
[3] Ibid, p. 80. Sgreccia alludes with this phrase to the work D’ Agostino, Bioetica nella prospettiva della filosofia del diritto (1996), p. 312. Spanish edition (2003) Bioethics. Studies in Philosophy of Law, Eunsa, Pamplona.
[4] Spaemann, R. (2010).Ethics: Fundamental issues. Pamplona: Eunsa, pp.77-90
