American Violet (2008) on Netflix
Dee Roberts, a single mother of four in Melody, Texas, is pulled from her diner shift in handcuffs and jailed on a drug charge. She can plead guilty or fight.
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- Netflix4.0/5
- IMDb6.9/102,932 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes75%
Trailer
Plot summary
In Melody, Texas, 24-year-old Dee Roberts raises four children alone and works at a diner. Calvin Beckett, the local district attorney, orders a drug sweep of her housing project during the 2000 presidential election. Officers take Dee from the diner in handcuffs and charge her as a drug dealer. The charge rests on the uncorroborated word of one informant who faces drug charges of his own. No drugs are found on her and she has no drug record. Beckett offers a choice: plead guilty and go home a felon, or stay in jail and fight, risking custody of her children and 18 to 24 years in prison. Her mother, Alma, urges her to take the deal. Dee instead turns to David Cohen, a lawyer with the ACLU, and Sam Conroy, a former narcotics officer.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about American Violet (2008)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- American Violet is based on the real lawsuit Regina Kelly v. John Paschall, brought on behalf of 15 African-American residents of Hearne, Texas, who were indicted in November 2000 after what the ACLU called "paramilitary" drug sweeps that District Attorney John Paschall's task force had run in the town for more than 15 years.
- The real district attorney behind the film's villain, John Paschall, later surrendered his law license: in 2016 he pleaded guilty to a felony for misusing an estate's money while acting as its executor, and was sentenced to 30 nights in jail, 10 years' probation and a $1,000 fine.
- The film shows a public defender pressuring the Dee Roberts character to take a plea bargain, but the real public defender on the case disputes this, saying he never advises clients he believes are innocent to plead guilty.
- The real legal team representing the plaintiffs was far bigger than the film suggests, about 25 lawyers from a private firm working for free, and the real DA never actually called the deposing lawyer "uppity" the way his film counterpart does.
