Sunday Screening – Clive Stafford Smith recommends Fourteen Days in May

Fourteen Days in May charts the last two weeks of Edward Johnson’s life. I hate to think how my inexperience may have cost him his life. He was patently innocent, but the courts were just not interested at the time.  Perhaps the film goes a very small way towards vindicating him and ensuring that something positive came out of the nightmare of his death. – Clive Stafford Smith

Fourteen Days in May is the seminal documentary about Edward Earl Johnson, an African American man convicted of rape and murder and sentenced to the death penalty in Mississippi. Despite continually protesting his innocence and claiming that his confession to the crimes was obtained under physical duress, Johnson continued his journey down death row to his own execution. 

Fourteen Days in May gives unprecedented access to the prison system in which the death penalty still operates. From prison wardens to Johnson to the executioners themselves, Fourteen Days in May includes the voice of capital punishment in America. This scope and Johnson’s death have served to establish Fourteen Days in May as one of the most venerated documentaries about the death penalty. 

1988
Directed by Paul Hamann
87 mins

Recommends is a new screening strand in which friends of Frontline select one of their favourite documentaries.