Just Cause

Just Cause is a 1995 American crime thriller film directed by Arne Glimcher and starring Sean Connery and Laurence Fishburne. It is based on John Katzenbach's novel of the same name. Plot Paul Armstrong, a liberal Harvard professor and former lawyer opposed to capital punishment, is persuaded by an elderly woman to go to Florida to investigate the conviction of her grandson Bobby Earl Ferguson for murder. Ferguson, a former Cornell University student, was convicted of raping and brutally murdering a young white girl named Joanie Shriver eight years prior. Ferguson tells Armstrong that he was physically and psychologically tortured by two police detectives to get a forced confession, but firmly states he is innocent. Armstrong, believing in his innocence, must save him from being executed in the electric chair. As Armstrong digs deeper into the case, he discovers that Tanny Brown, the chief detective on the case, did indeed coerce Ferguson's confession. Ferguson tells the professor that the murder was actually committed by Blair Sullivan, a serial killer awaiting execution. According to Ferguson, Sullivan constantly taunts him about his conviction for the crime. Sullivan, through the use of Biblical cryptic clues, later reveals the location of the knife used to kill the girl. Armstrong and Brown go to the place, where Armstrong asks Brown to retrieve the knife as Brown's the actual police officer. Brown tries to threaten Armstrong into abandoning the investigation. Armstrong then discovers why Brown is so passionate to get Ferguson convicted: the murdered girl was Brown's daughter's best friend. With a new testimony and with the murder weapon at hand, Ferguson gets a re-trial and is acquitted and thereafter freed from prison. Subsequently, the governor authorizes Sullivan's execution. Armstrong receives a call from Sullivan, who says he has a final clue to share, but first wants Armstrong to visit Sullivan's parents and tell them he said goodbye. Arriving at the house, Armstrong sees various religious items before finding their butchered, decaying bodies. Back at the prison, Sullivan gloats that he and Ferguson struck a deal: Ferguson would kill Sullivan's parents in exchange for freedom, while Sullivan would claim responsibility for the girl's murder, which Ferguson did in fact commit.