The Courtroom

By: Kelly Kearney

Directed by Lee Sunday Evans and written and adapted from the stage to screen by Arian Moayed, The Courtroom tells the story of Elizabeth Keathly, a Filipino immigrant facing forced deportation from her American husband and children after she mistakenly votes while on a K3 Visa. The film, which is based on a real-life case, follows Keathley’s civil trial transcripts verbatim and dives right into the case from the opening minutes. What the film lacks in set or character development it makes up in its eye-opening truth about the U.S. immigration system and legal framework that leaves little to no room for interpretation,

When we meet Elizabeth Keathley (Kristin Villanueva) it’s in the Fall of 2008 and she’s being sworn in under oath by the unbending Judge Zerbe (Marsha Stephanie Blake). Judge Zerbe asks Elizabeth if she requires a court-appointed translator and immediately you start to see the cracks so many fall into when it comes to our immigration laws and the courts. Yes, Elizabeth does speak English but it isn’t her first language and with all the legal jargon thrown her way, things can get confusing. So, when she is offered a translator who doesn’t speak her dialect of Tagalog the Judge pressures her to decline; not that it would’ve helped anyway as her dialect is so foreign to Tagalog that she would do better muddying through in English rather than take what the judge and representative for Homeland Security, Greg Guckenburger (Michael Braun), are offering her. Right away we can tell Elizabeth is a rule follower and someone who doesn’t like to go against the grain. She bends to the Judge’s unwillingness to even consider the differences in dialects and, from Zerbe’s standpoint, Elizabeth is no different than the other dozens of immigrants who sat in her courtroom that day. Her brush-off isn’t based on some sort of incompetence, just the opposite. In fact, Zerbe is a stickler for the semantics of the law (it’s from her exhaustion with the status quo) and it gives her the green light to walk all over Elizabeth’s rights for a good defense – and that is what is at the heart of this film. Does a woman who followed all the legal channels to come into this county deserve a defense in civil court? Our laws, at least before this case, said no and Guckenberg, who is working to deport Elizabeth, doesn’t agree. They are all beholden to a precedent that states any legal defenses existing in the realm of criminal court have no bearing on civil procedures. 

As the case unravels we learn that Elizabeth, wife to John (Michael Chernus), mother of a toddler and stepmother to her husband’s daughter, wasn’t a law breaker. She has a glowing record both in the Philippines and in America and even her co-workers at the hospital have nothing but kind words to say about her. When she met John through her sister, the two spent months getting to know each other over the phone and spending time together in the Philippines until they were eventually married. Once marriage documents were filed they started the ball rolling for legal residency. Everything was in order now that Elizabeth was on the long and arduous path to citizenship so she and her husband started to build a family. The troubles started though when she went to the Department of Motor Vehicles to apply for a driver’s license. With her only forms of ID being a Filipino passport and her K3 Visa, Elizabeth told the government employee right from the start that she wasn’t a citizen–which is fine if you want a license but not fine when the overworked and underpaid person at the counter directs you towards a voter’s registration form and asks you for your signature on the dotted line. At the time Elizabeth’s English wasn’t what it is in the courtroom at present; years have passed through the government’s red tape and her understanding has improved over time. When she signed her name on the registration form, she trusted the worker holding her documents not to guide her toward breaking the law. She went ahead and filled out everything from her organ donor paperwork to her signature on the voter’s registration form – sealing her fate with Homeland Security and putting her family’s future in question. Cut to a few months later and the Keathleys start getting notices about the upcoming Congressional elections in Illinois. Her husband, who did not know the ins and outs of voting while waiting for your Green Card, never questioned Elizabeth when she went off to the polls to vote. She thought she was doing her duty, right up until she went in for the final meeting for her Green Card. There she learned what she did was illegal – punishable by deportation and making her ineligible to finalize her permanent status as a U.S. citizen. That choice to vote, which was highly influenced by her trust in the DMV worker, is the basis of this case and why her lawyer Richard Hanus (Linda Powell) fights tirelessly for a defense called “entrapment by estoppel.” In simpler terms: someone cannot be held accountable for certain laws if someone in power, like a government official, guides them to break that law. Elizabeth is no more at fault for signing her name on that form and going to vote than if a state trooper blocking an intersection waved her through a red light.

The problem is a civil court isn’t a criminal court and it doesn’t get the right to a similar defense, even if the infraction is a criminal act. As we listen to Guckenberg steamroll over the facts of Elizabeth’s poor English at the time and judge the past based on her skills in the present, we realize the lack of defense leaves her at the mercy of a black and white law and an inflexible judge who cannot or will not bend those in Keathley’s favor. While Guckenberg blames Elizabeth for not knowing more of the law than a representative for the government and calls this an “unintentional violation” the Judge has no choice but to back him up; however, it does leave room for a later appeal. The laws are clear on this. If a non-citizen votes in an election they broke the law and no reasoning can negate the act. What’s done is done and there is no wiggle room. This pushes Elizabeth to take her fight all the way to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, where they wind up in the second act of this play-turned-film. Fighting in her corner from the start finds immigration lawyer Hanus hoping this new panel of judges will hear the entrapment case and block her deportation because it isn’t just from the country but from her family, too. Without spoiling anything, the courtroom scenes give us a ringside seat to the emotional rollercoaster immigrants go through in the U.S. justice system. If Lady Liberty asked to give her “your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…” she never read the fine print that says “as long as they speak perfect English and never make a mistake, then you can take your huddled masses back because they can’t stay here.” Somehow, the Founders’ ideas got lost along the way. 

The film is never heavy-handed with its agenda, even though it is obvious where director Evans and writer Moayed stand – they are overwhelming team Keathley – and even built a relationship with the family when working on the off-Broadway play that continued throughout the making of the film. Regardless of their beliefs, the piece never goes out of its way to tell the viewer what to think about the Keathley case and allows the court transcripts and the performances to speak for themselves. It informs without leading the viewer by the nose; it leaves you outraged without ever delving into the more negative aspects of immigration law and its foundations which are steeped in the country’s systemic racism. Sensationalizing and dramatizing the case would be easy to do; especially since its outcome changed the laws in seven states. Evans and Moayed simply ask the viewers to act as jurors in this juryless courtroom drama, and once the evidence is presented they leave it up to us to decide if Elizabeth was at fault or not. Its adherence to the transcripts leaves very little room for debate on a topic that has been hotly debated in the echoes of political media since fear-mongering about caravans became the new norm. 

But where the heart of this piece lies isn’t in the shattered image of a country that prides itself on being a beacon in the night for people fleeing persecution for a better life but in the performances by the actors who manage to turn the dry language of the trial proceedings into a passionate fight for family, patriotism and the protection of all within the country’s borders. With thousands of hours of transcripts to go through, Moayed, an Iranian immigrant himself, crafted a brilliant peek into a country that offers freedom on a platter but will gladly rip it from your hands before you take that first bite. As for direction, Evans wisely chose to keep the set strictly stage-like and pull the focus in on the courtroom. There are no outside distractions taking you away from the action in the room. It feels intimate like a play but works to keep the viewer zeroed in on the dialogue and the performances, which go a long way towards interpreting the rather technical heavy language presented in the transcripts. Without the talents of Powell and  Villanueva driving the story and untangling the jargon in their performances, the viewer could get lost in the weeds of precedent. In one particular scene Powell is thrown off their game by the Appeals court judge who goes out of their way to tangle the words coming out of the lawyer’s mouth. Powell stumbles with all the urgency of a prize fighter caught on the chin with an upper hook. As Hanus, she pummels her defense through the congested channels of justice until she breaks it down to a simple request: The mistake was made but can the law be forgiving? It’s a bob and weave performance that ups the tension until the final verdict. As for Villaneuva, she plays Keathley with a strong resilience that comes through in every forced smile and contained tear. Always careful not to show too much emotion while still delivering a sympathetic character you can root for. Her love of a country that tried to punish her for not being proficient in its laws and language comes through even in the hardest scenes in the trial. 

If courtroom dramas are your thing, especially if you’re not familiar with this case, then The Courtroom might be for you. Where it might lose you is in the word-for-word transcripts that can often confuse the legal novice and send you straight to Google to look up what is being said. Thankfully, the performances do a good enough job to feed the viewer the gist while keeping even the casually interested invested long enough to see the final verdict. At a time when immigration in the nation is under attack, exploring the inner workings of a case that changed our nation for the better is well worth the watch.