CONVICTION is based on a true story, after Kenny Waters (Rockwell) is sentenced to life in prison without parole for the first degree murder, his sister Betty Anne (Swank), firmly believes in his innocence, decides to become a lawyer herself so that she can legally helps Kenny to clear his crime.

Director Tony Goldwyn (yes, the actor who plays the villain in Jerry Zucker’s GHOST, 1990) clearly knows he has a life-affirming story extraordinaire at hand, and according to whom, the most sensible way to tell it is to lay bare Betty Anne’ travails, setbacks and elation along the way as formulaic as possible, and let two-times Oscar winner Swank have another showcase to magnify an ordinary woman’s indomitable fortitude, and honestly, Swank excels in bringing about a compelling and four-square performance although the characterization never trespass out of the safe zone of respectability, the only time Betty Anne’s monomania shows up its underside is when she blows a fuse toward her friend, Abra Rice (Driver), a fellow johnny-come-lately attorney who is designed with a pure angelic heart with a big mouth, which later she patches up with ease.

While Betty Ann’s working-mother-attending-law-school-and-then-fighting-the-injustice trope is, at the very least, inspiringly watchable, Kenny’s 18-year stint behind the bars is only sketched with very broad strokes, and the life before that sees him as a incorrigible hellion (starting as a child, thick as thieves with Betty Anne, raising Cain due to parental negligence), which is much in Rockwell’s wheelhouse, thus substantiates what makes him an easy whipping boy here, but the whole iffy prosecution, solely riding on circumstantial evidences (two untrustworthy witnesses), never gets a fair deal in its exposition, and it is a missed opportunity not to plumb into the prickly ulterior motive behind the corrupted sergeant Nancy Taylor (Leo).

Elsewhere, CONVICTION is everything what a conventional legal drama looks like, light on the legalese (DNA testing is one operative word here) and grinding procedural endeavor (sympathetic persistence is another one here), orthodox in its message (the story itself serves as an anti-death penalty testimony and Kenny's reparation deal doesn’t even get to be mentioned once), televisual in its anonymous imagery and unmemorable in its banal auditory accompaniment, plus above-average acting effort from tested thespians (Lewis is a two-scenes stealer here as a battered peckerwood), while it is despicable to witness such inequity in the police and legal department, what really interests CONVICTION is that an ordinary person like Betty Anne Waters can win this upward crusade of exoneration mostly by her own exertion speaks volumes of its larger milieu, as if proclaiming such feat can only be viable in a freedom-advocating country named USA, only considering how things have changed ever since, today, it is very hard to suppress a proverb like “even a stopped clock is right twice in a day” to its self-conscious patriotic agenda.

referential entries: Clint Eastwood’s MILLION DOLLAR BABY (2004, 8.0/10); RICHARD JEWELL (2019, 6.8/10).

奇妙的是電影《定罪》的英文是Conviction，可譯為“定罪”亦可譯為“確信”。正如影片中，貝蒂拒絕接受哥哥肯尼謀殺他人，用一己之力對抗美國國家司法制度體系，而幾乎窮盡人生中的大半時(shí)光為哥哥肯尼尋求公正的審判，她的堅(jiān)持和確信最終得到回應(yīng)——哥哥肯尼重回自由。

肯尼最終被宣判無罪

美麗的電影敘事為我們展示了一個(gè)英雄姑娘在愛與信任的激勵下追求正義審判并最終取勝。但美麗的背后蘊(yùn)藏著種種真實(shí)的黑暗：1.代表正義的司法程序并未能公正審判，而是為個(gè)人（警察）所用，程序到底能不能成就結(jié)果正義。2.保障正義需要依靠個(gè)人的斗爭而不是靠完善的制度，公利救濟(jì)or私利救濟(jì)即正義？且法律救濟(jì)的有限性。3.不公正的審判帶來的個(gè)人、家庭命運(yùn)的悲劇。4.完美的犯罪構(gòu)成推論與真相相悖，司法審判或重審亦摻雜著權(quán)力機(jī)關(guān)的利益考量，法院能不能做好第三人的角色。

基于此，本文從法學(xué)視角著探討：我們所期許的法律正義是什么？它是一種形式正義還是實(shí)質(zhì)正義？以及作為法律人所應(yīng)當(dāng)具備的執(zhí)念。

??什么是正義？

??哲學(xué)上的正義

蘇格拉底認(rèn)為正義是美德和知識。沒有人會有意識地作惡，即倘若徹底地認(rèn)識到所作所為是惡，就不會作惡。如果人們知道什么是正義，就會公正地行事。

柏拉圖認(rèn)為法律本身即正義，但是柏拉圖語境中的“法律”是指維護(hù)盡善盡美的社會分工的法律制度。

亞里士多德提出分配的正義和矯正的正義——前者是在他支持的“社會不平等”的理念下，不同品德的人享有不同的資源的正義。后者是在平等人群中的平均分配的正義，具體適用于契約、買賣、司法審判。

??個(gè)人正義與社會正義

個(gè)人正義和善與美德是對立的，前者維護(hù)私利，后者維護(hù)公利。即自身利益受損，得到維護(hù)補(bǔ)償和尊重，并被賦予高尚的屬性，代表共同的價(jià)值訴求的一種正義。（筆者觀點(diǎn)）

社會正義即羅爾斯提出的“無知之幕”（The veil of ignorance）。羅爾斯在《正義論》當(dāng)中提出了關(guān)于正義的兩條原則：第一條是所謂平等的自由原則，即每個(gè)人應(yīng)該在社會中享有平等的自由權(quán)利；第二條原則包括差別原則與機(jī)會平等原則。前者要求在進(jìn)行分配的時(shí)候，如果不得不產(chǎn)生某種不平等的話，這種不平等應(yīng)該有利于境遇最差的人們的最大利益，就是說，利益分配應(yīng)該像處于不利地位的人們傾斜；后者要求將機(jī)會平等的原則應(yīng)用于社會經(jīng)濟(jì)的不平等，使具有同等能力、技術(shù)與動機(jī)的人們享有平等的獲得職位的機(jī)會。

正義論

??刑法學(xué)上的正義

綜上關(guān)于正義的概念，抽象且各異，應(yīng)用于法律實(shí)踐則會出現(xiàn)混亂與不公。刑法學(xué)上的正義是通過程序而實(shí)現(xiàn)的，通過程序向?qū)嵸|(zhì)正義靠攏，其本質(zhì)也是一種形式正義，即法律面前人人平等。 這當(dāng)然解決了關(guān)于正義的爭議問題，但程序如何保證運(yùn)送的是正義而不是災(zāi)難，任重而道遠(yuǎn)。

??期許的法律正義

法律正義不是個(gè)人的正義，亦不算是社會的正義——它是第三人的正義。在一件具體的案件中：審判機(jī)關(guān)在行為人、受害者之間進(jìn)行權(quán)衡裁判， 所以審判機(jī)關(guān)無論站在具體兩方的立場（個(gè)人正義）還是社會立場（社會防衛(wèi)論：由具體的法益侵害上升到社會危害意義的社會正義）都有可能導(dǎo)致非正義。 其表現(xiàn)為前者的具體分配不正義和后者的擴(kuò)大危害性的不正義。 ————影片矛盾焦點(diǎn)之一也集中于此，基于公利救濟(jì)立場的控方和審判機(jī)關(guān)很可能在司法過程中采取不法手段或籠統(tǒng)的犯罪推定致使犯罪構(gòu)成推論與真相相悖。法律的應(yīng)當(dāng)角色或者審判機(jī)關(guān)的應(yīng)當(dāng)角色是第三人，在具體案件中利益無涉，才能呈現(xiàn)最公正的審理。運(yùn)送正義最有效的方式是程序，程序正義的最好方式是讓法律或?qū)徟袡C(jī)關(guān)成為第三人。

??法律人的執(zhí)念

個(gè)人認(rèn)為正義訴求是每個(gè)人都具備的執(zhí)念，它不專屬于法律人。影片中的貝蒂可以為了為哥哥肯尼追求正義而成為法律人，但法律人的生涯不可能只帶有正義的標(biāo)簽。曾經(jīng)和一位律師前輩討教，他告訴我，有時(shí)候自己接的案子都不知道委托人的對錯。這在價(jià)值判斷上確實(shí)會使人苦惱，但究其根源仍是按個(gè)人的標(biāo)準(zhǔn)去審視案件，難道不符合個(gè)人價(jià)值標(biāo)準(zhǔn)的案件就不接或者在自己認(rèn)為委托人已經(jīng)明確違反法律規(guī)定的情況下就不接么？當(dāng)然，作為一個(gè)職業(yè)，律師可以自由選擇。但作為法律人應(yīng)當(dāng)具備的執(zhí)念應(yīng)當(dāng)是理性與客觀，去挖掘線索接近真相，然后將它呈現(xiàn)在法律面前，交由法庭審判。

在影片中，往往貝蒂實(shí)現(xiàn)正義做的斗爭為人們咄咄稱贊，但是她不顧一切堅(jiān)持尋求肯尼無罪的證據(jù)，去探求真相才是一個(gè)法律人應(yīng)具備的品質(zhì)，因?yàn)橹挥羞@樣，我們才有可能達(dá)到期許的正義。

正義的呈現(xiàn)往往能夠激起人們情感的漣漪，但沒有多少人可以為事不關(guān)己的正義投注心血。法律人應(yīng)當(dāng)是追求正義的群體，而法律人追求正義的執(zhí)念就是理性與客觀，因此，事實(shí)呈現(xiàn)與公正審判程序都具有了實(shí)現(xiàn)的可能性，我們所期許的正義就不再遙遠(yuǎn)。