Just Cause

Paul Armstrong (Sean Connery), a liberal Harvard professor opposed to capital punishment, is persuaded to go to Florida, to investigate the conviction of Bobby Earl Ferguson (Blair Underwood) for murder. Ferguson, a former Cornell University student, is a highly intelligent, charming, and articulate black man who was convicted of raping and murdering a young white girl. Armstrong must save him from being executed in the electric chair. Ferguson tells Armstrong that he was tortured by two police detectives to get a confession. As Armstrong digs deeper into the case, he discovers that Tanny Brown (Laurence Fishburne), the chief detective on the case, did indeed coerce Ferguson's confession.