Fourteen Days in May

The documentary records two weeks a camera crew spent in Mississippi. The crew follows the last fourteen days of Edward Earl Johnson, a man on death row. Filming begins on 6 May 1987, the day Johnson learns the date of his execution. He had been convicted of rape and murder; he says he is innocent and that his confession was taken from him under threat. The crew talks with Johnson, his family, the warden, the guards and other prisoners. His lawyer, Clive Stafford Smith, works to save his life up to the last moment. Johnson was executed in the gas chamber on 20 May 1987. The film shows the execution not as a topic for argument but as the last days of a person. Paul Hamann’s eighty seven minute British documentary was completed in 1987.