A Time to Kill

In 1984 in Clanton, Mississippi, ten-year-old African-American girl Tonya Hailey is abducted, raped, and beaten by two local white men, Billy Ray Cobb and Pete Willard, while on her way home from getting groceries. The duo dump her in a nearby river after a failed attempt to hang her. Tonya survives, and Sheriff Ozzie Walls arrests Cobb and Willard. Tonya's father, Carl Lee Hailey, contacts Jake Brigance, a white lawyer who previously defended his brother Lester. As the rape and subsequent revenge killing gain national media attention, DA Rufus Buckley decides to take the case in hopes of furthering his political career.