✏️ Legal Pad
“Mercy,” Swift Justice, and Why Speed Isn’t the Same as Fairness
There’s a new movie out today called Mercy, starring Chris Pratt, and it offers a vision of the future that provides nightmare fuel for anyone who cares about that thing called due process.
Set in Los Angeles in the not too distant future, the film imagines a justice system that has “solved” violent crime by removing humans almost entirely. Murder suspects are strapped to a chair, presented with evidence by an AI judge, found guilty, and executed; all within 90 minutes. The system is called Mercy, which feels intentional in the way dystopias always do. There’s no jury. No defense lawyer. No cross-examination. Just an algorithm that assures everyone it’s never wrong.
The film itself has its flaws (and plenty of them, Rotten Tomatoes hates it), but the premise is the interesting part, and it reminds me of the 2002 Tom Cruise movie, Minority Report, about stopping “pre-crime.”. Mercy confuses speed with justice, certainty with truth, and efficiency with legitimacy. It imagines a world where error is mathematically impossible, and then immediately shows why that’s problematic.
The real justice system is slow because it’s human. It allows for mistakes, second thoughts, objections, and arguments that don’t fit neatly into an algorithm. That friction isn’t a bug, it’s the feature. When the stakes are life and liberty, the answer shouldn’t come in 90 minutes, no matter how confident the software claims to be.
Swift justice may feel satisfying. But history has taught us, over and over, that fairness rarely travels at high speed.
💡 Sidebar
Snow Is Coming (And South Carolina Is Not Ready)
If you’ve checked the forecast, you know the Southeast is bracing for a serious snow and ice storm. Which means South Carolina is preparing the only way it knows how: panic, milk, and toilet paper (a COVID holdover, I think).
As best I can tell, the state owns one snowplow, likely manufactured sometime around 1962, and a single shaker of Morton’s salt that gets passed around like a family heirloom along the state’s highway system. Roads close. Schools close. Government offices issue statements encouraging “caution,” which mostly means stay home and pray it melts by noon.
When winter weather shows up uninvited, the entire state collectively shrugs and says, “Well…we tried.” So if you see empty grocery shelves, abandoned interstates, or neighbors sledding down hills on garbage can lids or liberated cafeteria trays, just know this: it’s not chaos. It’s tradition.
⚖️ Closing Arguments
Next week, I’ll be heading back into a different kind of storm- trial.
The case is one we’ve been preparing for a long time. It involves government actors making decisions that defied common sense, ignored obvious risks, and ultimately placed the public in harm’s way. When those risks became reality, the response wasn’t accountability, it was finger-pointing and excuses. “Mistakes were made,” just not by anyone willing to own them. Hopefully the jury will fix that.
Unlike a snowstorm, though, trials don’t melt by Monday afternoon. They demand patience, steadiness, and the willingness to stand in uncomfortable conditions until the truth is clear. And while some people would prefer these disputes be resolved quietly, behind closed doors, this one belongs in the open; where evidence is tested, decisions are scrutinized, and accountability isn’t optional.
So as the weather rolls in and the roads ice over, I’ll be preparing for a different forecast entirely. One where the conditions are tough, the stakes are real, and the only way through is forward.
Here’s to weathering the storm- both of them.
Court is in recess- see you next Friday.
