''Fourteen Days in May'' is a

documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a historical record". Bill Nichols has characterized the documentary in te ...

directed by Paul Hamann and originally shown on television by the

British Broadcasting Corporation #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board ex ...

(BBC) in 1987. The programme recounts the final days before the execution of

Edward Earl Johnson Edward Earl Johnson (June 22, 1960 – May 20, 1987) was a man convicted in 1979 at the age of 18 and subsequently executed by the U.S. state of Mississippi for the murder of a policeman, J.T. Trest, and the sexual assault of a 69-year-old woma ...

, an American prisoner convicted of

rape Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse or other forms of sexual penetration carried out against a person without their consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority, or ...

and murder and imprisoned in the Mississippi State Penitentiary. Johnson protested his innocence and claimed that his confession had been made under duress. He was executed in

Mississippi Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Miss ...

gas chamber A gas chamber is an apparatus for killing humans or other animals with gas, consisting of a sealed chamber into which a poisonous or asphyxiant gas is introduced. Poisonous agents used include hydrogen cyanide and carbon monoxide. History ...

on 20 May 1987. The documentary crew, given access to the prison warden, guards and chaplain and to Johnson and his family, filmed the last days of Johnson's life in detail. The documentary argues against the death penalty and maintains that capital punishment is disproportionately applied to

African-American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ensl ...

s convicted of

crime In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definitions of", in Ca ...

s against

white White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully reflect and scatter all the visible wavelengths of light. White o ...

s. The programme features attorney Clive Stafford Smith, an advocate against capital punishment. ''Fourteen Days in May'' won a

British Film Institute The British Film Institute (BFI) is a film and television charitable organisation which promotes and preserves film-making and television in the United Kingdom. The BFI uses funds provided by the National Lottery (United Kingdom), National Lot ...

Grierson Award and a top prize at the Festival dei Populi. It has been shown in many countries but has only appeared in an abbreviated form in the United States, on HBO. Hamann disowned this shortened version. It was in direct response to this documentary that the ''Lifelines'' organisation was set up, to organise pen pals for death row prisoners. The 1988 track '14 Days in May' by British rapper

Overlord X Overlord X (born Benjamin Balogun, in Hackney) was one of the earliest British hip hop artists to receive national acclaim in the UK, with his most well known song still being his second single release, "14 Days in May" (Westside Records, 1988) ...

contains samples from this documentary and can be found on the compilation album ''Street Sounds Hip Hop 20''.

References

External links

''Allmovie'' review of ''Fourteen Days in May''
at

Answers.com Answers.com, formerly known as WikiAnswers, is an Internet-based knowledge exchange. The Answers.com domain name was purchased by entrepreneurs Bill Gross and Henrik Jones at idealab in 1996. The domain name was acquired by NetShepard and sub ...

''Fourteen Days in May''
at the

Review of ''Fourteen Days in May'' on ''Chronicles'' blogLifelines website
* {{IMDb title, 0188626, Fourteen Days in May BBC television documentaries Documentary films about capital punishment in the United States 1987 television specials 1987 films 1980s English-language films 1980s British films

See also

References

External links