Lawyer Atticus defends an innocent black man

Scout Finch, 6, and her older brother Jem live in sleepy Maycomb, Alabama, spending much of their time with their friend Dill and spying on their reclusive and mysterious neighbor, Boo Radley. When Atticus, their widowed father and a respected lawyer, defends a black man named Tom Robinson against fabricated rape charges, the trial and tangent events expose the children to evils of racism and stereotyping.

In this full-length documentary, Mary Murphy explores the enduring power, popularity & mystery that is Harper Lee. She interviews Oprah Winfrey, Wally Lamb Anna Quindlen, James McBride and others, and with rare cooperation from Harper Lee’s family and friends tells the story of a novel that became an American classic. In the newest edition of the film, Harper Lee from Mockingbird to Watchman, Murphy examines the rediscovered novel and its place alongside To Kill A Mockingbird.

Rural Mississippi in the 1940s: Lucas Beauchamp, a local black man with a reputation of not kowtowing to whites, is found standing over the body of a dead white man, holding a pistol that has recently been fired. Quickly arrested for murder and jailed, Beauchamp insists he's innocent and asks the town's most prominent lawyer, Gavin Stevens, to defend him, but Stevens refuses. When a local boy whom Beauchamp has helped in the past and who believes him to be innocent hears talk of a mob taking Beauchamp out of jail and lynching him, he pleads with Stevens to defend Beauchamp at trial and prove his innocence.

A lawyer is haunted by a previous case in which he manipulated evidence and convicted an innocent man.

A black city attorney is forced to defend a white cop who's being held hostage by a gang seeking revenge for a young boy's murder.

In 1930s Alabama, nine young black men are accused of raping two white women. The judge in the case, unlike the rest of the town, comes to believe that the boys are innocent and, against all advice from his friends and family, sets them free, which turns the entire community against him.

A young lawyer defends a black man accused of murdering two white men who raped his 10-year-old daughter, sparking a rebirth of the KKK.

In the 1940s South, an African-American man is wrongly accused of the killing a a white store owner. In his defense, his white attorney equates him with a lowly hog, to indicate that he didn't have the sense to know what he was doing. Nevertheless convicted, he is sentenced to die, but his godmother and the aunt of the local schoolteacher convince school teacher go to the convicted man's cell each day to try to reaffirm to him that he is not an animal but a man with dignity.

James Forman, a 31-year-old public defender and son of a civil rights leader, provides representation for black youth in Washington, D.C., who can't afford their own attorneys in this riveting documentary that goes inside the criminal justice system. Director Kirsten Johnson's award-winning film also sheds light on the difficulties that ex-offenders face when trying to break the cycle of crime and imprisonment.

A jury deliberating the case of Theodore Sterling, a privileged young man accused of sexual assault of a 20-something African-American woman. The prosecution is led by Assistant State Attorney James Jones, an overworked yet determined prosecutor, who faces off against Greg Sims, a veteran defense attorney with an unbroken 25-year winning streak.