Claude Shelton Justice

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The movie opens with Clyde Shelton (Gerard Butler) in his workshop getting ready for dinner with his wife and daughter. Clyde answers a knock at his front door, when he answers it two men, named Clarence Darby (Christian Stolte) and Rupert Ames (Josh Stewart), knock him out, kill and rape his wife, and kill and possibly sexually assault his daughter. A year later comes the trial, where Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx), Clyde’s attorney, is given the option to make a deal with Darby to put Ames on death row, in exchange for a drastically shorter sentence for Darby. Despite Clyde’s pleading for justice, Rice takes this deal, causing Clyde to form a hatred for the justice system. Fast forward ten years, Clyde is on an intricate and mind boggling killing spree, targeting …show more content…

Although he killed not one but two people prior to his confession, there was no evidence against it. The second he gave his confession on tape, he became an offender. In the textbook, it describes an ideal offender as “an outsider, stranger, foreigner, intruder lacking ‘essential human qualities’ that are beyond rehabilitation.” (Chapter 2, page 56). The description that most fits Clyde Shelton is the portion that says “beyond rehabilitation”. Clyde Shelton was always going to go through with his killing, despite whether Nick realized he needed to change or not. The way he spoke about the people he killed and the ideals that led to it, portrayed that he was too far gone. Despite Clyde Shelton being the ideal offender, he does not fit the full description. The book quotes, “...most offenders are normal people reacting to extreme circumstances in their lives, conditions that produce evil actions.” (Chapter 2, page 56) Prior to the home invasion of the Shelton household, it can be seen that Clyde was pretty much an upstanding citizen. His care for his daughter and humor with his wife showed that he wasn’t always an offender, far from it

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