How Does Money Figure in A Time To Kill by John Grisham

                  Money controls everything. Now I know what you’re going to say, “No it doesn’t”. Well newsflash it does, especially in the book A Time to Kill by John Grisham. In this book, money figures as a way to maintain life, without it we would be dead. Grisham shows this very well by making the main character Carl Lee Hailey’s life lay in the hands of money.

                A Time to Kill by John Grisham takes place in Ford County, Mississippi where seventy three percent of the population is white and racist but at the time most of the south was racist toward African Americans. In the book these two white males around their mid-thirties raped a ten year old black girl. “A man’s supposed to protect his family” (Grisham 60), knowing that the men would get loose without being charged, Carl Lee Hailey the father of the little raped girl killed the two men in cold blood as they were leaving the courtroom to avenge his daughters rape. Now Hailey has been indicted with manslaughter and might face the gas chamber.

                The only way Hailey has a chance of not dying by the gas chamber is if he has a great lawyer that can prove him innocent and keep him alive, but to have a good lawyer, you need the money to pay for one. Hailey, being in jail until the trial, can’t make the money he needs because he’s the one with the income in his family and he lost his job because he is in jail. Jake, Hailey’s lawyer was explaining to Hailey that he needs to gather up the money to pay for all these fees for the trial, “You’ve got to have cash, Carl Lee. Not for me but for the psychiatrists. Why? Because I’d like to keep you away from the gas chamber which is only a hundred miles away. And to that, we need them to believe you were crazy when shooting those boys and we need an expert, a doctor to do so and they don't work for free.” (Grisham 208). The thing is if Hailey had the money he would’ve given it to Jake but he doesn’t have the money. His family barely has enough money to put food on the table.

                What I think was really cool was that Grisham showed that money affects everyone not just Hailey. Most of the African American people in Ford County live in poverty and don’t have jobs and barely have enough money to even scratch up a dollar for a good cause. The author shows this by having the local church have a fundraiser to help Hailey’s case, but they only made a couple thousand dollars because most of the people could only scratch up the few dollars they had.

How Does A Time To Kill by John Grisham Make You Think About Justice in the World?

I grew up watching Law and Order: Special Victims Unit. It showed me that justice isn't always fair and that some people, when emotionally unstable, will take the law into their own hands and commit a crime. Now I learnt all that from watching a television show for almost five years.

The book A Time to Kill by John Grisham taught me the same exact thing but in a different way in a different time period. A Time to Kill takes place in the conservative and racist south, in Ford County, Mississippi, where 73 percent of the population is white and most of them are racist. A ten year old black girl gets viciously raped by two white men by the name of Willard and Billy Ray Cobb. While the two men were coming out of their indictment from court, Carl Lee, the father of the raped girl takes the law into his own hands and kills the two rapist in cold blood. Now he is in jail and waiting to get his indictment.

The book shows me that justice doesn't always mean fair. I’m only in the beginning of the book and I have already learnt that back in the day that whites could get easier punishments and get acquitted easier for murder than blacks. For example in the book Jake, Cobs’ white attorney says to Cobb:

“I’m white, and this is a white county. With luck I could get an all-white jury, which naturally would be sympathetic. This isn't New York or California. Mans supposed to protect his family. Some whites would admire you but most would want to see you hang. It would be much harder to win an acquittal.”(Grisham 61).

    This textual evidence shows that back some hundred or maybe even fifty years ago that justice wasn't nondiscriminatory, it used to depend on skin color.

    Now comparing justice back then and now I believe that justice is fair, depending where the location is fairness varies but at least today the government goes through a lot more for a person to have a fair trial. In the book, the one who is being charged with the crime, depending on how much power he or she may have could get a bias jury or a jury or judge to their liking. Today, the jury is randomly selected and has to meet requirements such as no connection to the case or the people. The jury is usually a mix of different races and genders from different backgrounds so the jury can’t be bias. The point I’m trying to prove is that comparing the two time period I’m glad to say that the justice system may not be equal and fair but the government at least tries to make the playing field leveled as possible the law will let it be.