JUST 701 (07) - Senior Seminar

Justice on the Big Screen: Separating Fact or Fiction from Hollywood's Legal Drama's:
Have you ever watched a movie about a famous trial and asked, “Is that what really happened?” For example, fact or fiction: In the movie  Just Mercy, was Walter Macmillan really sentenced to death for a crime he didn’t commit or was that just Hollywood fiction? Fact or fiction, in the movie The Trial of the Chicago 7, was the defendant Bobby Seale really bound, gagged and shackled to his chair in open court or was that too just Hollywood fiction?  Fact or fiction: Was Tom Cruise’s character in A Few Good Men, real or just a Hollywood character? Was it real or just fiction on a movie reel?

In this course  we will examine some of the famous trials that became the basis for Hollywood movies,  watch the movies, read about the trials and examine the trial records and history of those cases to answer the question of whether the movies are Fact or Fiction. In doing so, students will learn about a variety of cases on subjects such as the death penalty, the 1^st Amendment, religion and the law, race and slavery, the right to counsel, environmental cases, the Salem witch trials  and more. Students will also learn about the trial process and how cases make it from the court room to the movie theater.

The course draws upon the multidisciplinary class makeup to read, study, watch the movies and present on those cases. There are reading and writing assignments for each class and group presentations.