Recommendation for Mercy (1975)

Canadian writer/director Murray Markowitz based his film Recommendation for Mercy on a true story. Andrew Skidd plays a teenaged boy accused of raping and murdering a young girl. The flimsy evidence is offered by three of Skidd's buddies and by one of the friends of the dead girl. The boy is strongarmed and drugged by the police who hope to extract a confession. Despite the civil-liberty outrages inflicted upon Skidd, he is found guilty. Recommendation for Mercy does not ask us to forgive the boy his alleged crimes; rather, it is a plea for a reassessment of the treatment afforded Canadian juvenile offenders. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi