Justice?


I agree with all the things I've read here about this having been one of the best TV movies ever made, and about it having one of the most powerfully emotional endings ever. However, the ending simply doesn't sit well with my sense of justice. I see Myrl's point about his actions having inadvertantly caused the rancher's wife to have accidentally gotten shot. However, the rancher committed perjury on the stand, lied about how it went down, lied about not having known anything about the beef between Myrl and Ballard (he was at the barn earlier when Myrl set fire to it), and got away with all his lies.

Myrl was put to death because of false testimony. I agree that he should have faced consequences for his vigilante-style antics, but not death by hanging. The punishment didn't fit the crime, and the ending outraged me! I couldn't believe no one else has commented on this! Am I the only one who feels this way?

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Partially you are right. Myrl Redding´s death by hanging was unjust, but you´ve also got to see it this way:

Myrl was not put to death for his false testimony. He was put to death, because of the letter he wanted to send to Billy, where he announced that he was planning to break the conditions for the amnesty offered by the Governor.
In the eyes of the jury that meant that he accepted the death of the rancher´s wife in the name of Justice, which made him guilty of murder in the eyes of the jury.

I personally do not believe he ever realized that the Rancher´s wife died because of him until it was discussed in the courtroom, since he was obsessed with making Ballard pay for what he had done to him and never saw her dead, since the Rancher drove him away with bullets motivated by an unreasonable fear caused by Redding´s violent actions.

Therefore, in short terms, Redding paid for a murder he did not commit, but the jury´s decision to declare him guilty of murder, forcing the judge to condemn him to death because of it, is understandable and Myrl realized that, too.
It makes Redding´s fate especially tragic and Judge Tolliver fully realized that. This realization caused Judge Tolliver to subsequently develope deep anger against everyone that did wrong to Myrl Redding, creating justice on the way.

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Myrl was in a no win situation at the end, reminding me of the Richard Gere movie "Sommersby"!!!

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Just Watched the movie,It was great until the ending!Justice,politics and money go hand in hand!

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I can't believe some of you guys are trying to rationalize an innocent man being put to death.

You want to play the game, you'd better know the rules, love.
-Harry Callahan

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