DOUBLE JEOPARDY

 

TWO STARS -  DISTURBING

 

 

       When the Fifth Amendment declared that those of us under its jurisdiction cannot be tried for the same crime twice, it is unlikely that it had Libby Parson in mind.  Rather than giving Libby permission to murder her husband with legal immunity, the Fifth Amendment’s “Double Jeopardy” protection was given as a shield against the misuse of government to keep us imprisoned through countless trials even if we are repeatedly found innocent.

       But it is nevertheless an intriguing question not entirely answered by director Bruce Beresford’s new film “Double Jeopardy.”

       Set within the illusive affluence of the stunning Puget Sound, Libby (Ashley Judd) is the wife of a brash young entrepreneur named Nick Parson (Bruce Greenwood).  In the beginning scenes, as Nick is the dashing host in his magnificent home, it is also hinted that he is on the brink of financial disaster.

        But Nick has nothing to worry about, for he has the perfect plan.  That night he is going to lure his wife onto her favorite sailboat and, at a location three miles out to sea, feign his own death and frame her for murder. 

       He is successful.

       Though Libby has no warning that he is either capable of such evil or preparing to harm her in such a callous manner, within days she finds herself imprisoned for the murder of her husband.  The presumed motive for her action is that she is the beneficiary of a two million dollar insurance policy he took out on his life.

       At first, Libby does not realize her husband has framed her and feigned his death.  Depressed and defeated, Libby asks her best friend Angie (Annabeth Gish) to adopt her son and use the two million dollars to raise him.

       But Angie is in on the deception, and as the plot predictably progresses, Angie soon leaves town with Libby’s son and husband and begins a new life with them in San Francisco.

       Through ingenuity and luck, Libby tracks them down and shockingly discovers the truth: she is in prison due to the betrayal of her husband and best friend.

       It is there that she is given the counsel by another inmate who had trained as a lawyer that she can wait until she gets paroled in six years and then kill her husband with legal immunity because she cannot be tried for the same crime twice. 

       This is perhaps the most disturbing development of the film, which even the film does not ultimately support.  The suggestion that what is legal is permissible does not state whether what is legal is right.  The law permits many actions today which are not moral.  Such permission is often the result of good intentions by those who write the amendments or rule on court issues, but that does not make them right.

       At first, the desire for revenge consumes Libby’s soul.  Working out night and day, she becomes physically fit and spiritually hardened.  She seems to have chosen to take advantage of the double jeopardy protection.

       Following the guidance of her savvy inmate counselors, she successfully convinces the parole board to grant a conditional parole in which she must stay for three years in a half-way house under the jurisdiction of Travis Lehman (Tommy Lee Jones).  But Libby cannot wait.  Attempting to track down her husband, Libby violates her parole requirements and becomes a fugitive of the law.

       Mimicking the film-making genius of the “Fugitive” series and film, Travis Lehman sets out not only to catch Libby but also to prove her innocence.  This proves to be the decisive complication in Libby’s life.

       Having tracked her husband to New Orleans after he orchestrated the death of Angie, Libby decides not to kill Nick but only to ask for her son back.  It is this moral high road that makes the ending of the film work. 

       If Libby had come into her husband’s life with guns blazing, all of us would have recoiled at her actions.  Responding to evil with evil and deliberately taking human life is morally wrong, regardless of the legal rulings or constitutional loopholes we may use to justify our actions.  Libby must rise above the temptation to use the Fifth Amendment as a justification for perpetrating her own evil.  Libby expresses a depth of courage and character  that protects her own dignity and brings the evil to an end.

       As a film, “Double Jeopardy” begins to explore the relationship of legality to morality.  Though this example is one few of us will ever face, we are nevertheless often confronted with the possibility of using the legal system to harm another human being.  At that moment the choice we make will not only determine the fate of another person but our own as well.

 

 

 

(791 words)

 

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