Fourteen Days in May

Common card · No. 419859

Fourteen Days in May is a documentary film directed by Paul Hamann and originally shown on television by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) in 1987. The programme recounts the final days before the execution of Edward Earl Johnson, an American prisoner convicted of rape 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's gas chamber 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-Americans convicted of crimes against whites. The programme features attorney Clive Stafford Smith, an advocate against capital punishment. Fourteen Days in May won a British Film Institute Grierson Award and a top prize...

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