Find Me Guilty

Sidney Lumet is one of the most respected directors of all time. His first theatrical film was 12 Angry Men, which quickly became a classic. He has visited the courtroom many times, starting with 12 Angry Men, and continuing in films like The Verdict and his TV series 100 Center Street. His courtrooms dramas are not so much about procedures and evidence as they are about the people that are involved in these cases. In 12 Angry Men we watch as a jury deliberates and battles over the question of guilt. In The Verdict the focus in on the lawyers and judges and the games they play trying to win. 100 Center Street was a look at the attorneys and judges as everyday people trying to do their jobs as best they could.

Lumet has returned to the courtroom in Find Me Guilty, based on the longest trial in U.S. history. Twenty defendants faced seventy-six charges in a large racketeering case alleging bribery, robbery, drugs, kidnapping, extortion, gambling and several other crimes. If found guilty the defendants could have been looking at the rest of their lives in jail. The trial lasted over twenty-one months. One defense attorney’s closing statement lasted five days.

The center of Lumet’s latest trip to the courthouse is Giacomo DiNorscio (aka Fat Jack, aka Jackie Dee). Jackie Dee is not the most powerful person in the alleged crime syndicate, nor the smartest. He’s just one of the many who play a part in the rackets being run.

The government really wants to win this case; they start by trying to get Jackie to cooperate as a witness against the others. Jackie has also been arrested and convicted of selling drugs and sentenced to thirty years. The US Attorney is willing to cut time off his sentence if he will testify against the others.

Jackie, though, believes in loyalty. These are his friends. As he says often, he loves them. He lives by a code that you don’t rat on your friends. Even when his cousin tried to kill him, he wouldn’t tell the police about it. Even though it could well have been in his self-interest to testify, he believes his betrayal of friends would be a betrayal of himself.

Jackie, who has lost faith in lawyers, chooses to defend himself in the trial. His legal experience is limited to spending half his life in jail. He begins be seeing this as not much more than a big joke. He claims during his opening statement, “I’m not a gangster. I’m a gagster.� He tells inappropriate jokes. He clowns for the jury. Both sides would like to get rid of him. But it would only complicate things more.

As time passes (and in a 21 month trial, lots of time passes) he gets more serious about what he’s doing. He gets to cross examine witnesses at a very personal level – not only about their testimony, but about the relationship that they are violating by that testimony. By the time the trial is over, he was earned the respect of one of the defense attorneys as well as the audience.

Jackie Dee understands loyalty far more than his co-defendants. Each of them is looking out for themselves, so they each have their own lawyer who only cares about that defendant’s interest (as is proper in such a case.) They are all willing to distance themselves from Jackie, especially if it looks like he’s hurting them. The thing is though, it’s hard to tell if he’s helping or hurting.

In his closing remarks, Jackie makes the ultimate sacrifice – he offers to give up his life for his friends. He tells the jury that if they think someone needs to be found guilty, “Find me guilty, not my friends.� Compare that to Jesus statement: No one has greater love that this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. (John 15:13 NRSV) To be sure, there is a qualitative difference between Jackie and Jesus and their respective sacrifices, but we know that Jackie is not merely pulling some sort of legal ploy; he is acting out of his love for his friends, even if they do not show the same love to him.

This is not among the best of Lumet’s work. The characters are stereotypical. Vin Diesel’s performance is over the top. The story jumps through the trial too much for us to appreciate the jury’s verdict. But on the other hand, it’s not a wasted evening. We can learn what it means to love another – that in the end it means doing for them even if they do nothing for you.