Too Young to Die?


Too Young to Die? is a 1990 television movie starring Brad Pitt and Juliette Lewis. It touches on the debate concerning the death penalty. It is based on a true story. Three years later, Pitt and Lewis would reunite, portraying somewhat similar characters, in Kalifornia.

Plot

Juliette Lewis plays Amanda, age 15. She falls prey to a hustler, Billy. He introduces Amanda to the world of drugs and prostitution. She then meets a man who shows her the only love she's ever known. When he is forced to break off their friendship, Billy convinces Amanda to take revenge by killing him. Amanda is arrested and tried as an adult. If Amanda is found guilty, she'll face the death penalty. Despite the best effort that Amanda's lawyer who points out that Billy was the one who instigated and manipulated Amanda into committing robbery and a murder, the jury is unsympathetic and convicts Amanda of murder. Amanda is sentenced to death.

Basis

Although set in Oklahoma, the film is loosely based on Attina Marie Cannaday, who along with David Gray, killed Ronald Wojcik, with a knife, in Harrison County, Mississippi on June 3, 1982.
Cannaday was charged with robbery, kidnapping, and homicide. At the time of her trial, she was a sixteen-year-old divorcee, who had married at thirteen and divorced at fourteen. She was convicted in Harrison County Circuit Court of the kidnap and murder of U. S. Air Force Sergeant Ronald Wojcik and the jury sentenced her to death by lethal injection. The guilty verdict was upheld, but the sentence was reversed in 1984, Cannaday v. State, 455 So.2d 713, 720, and she was resentenced to one life sentence and two 25-year sentences at Central Mississippi Correctional Facility. She was released on parole on March 9, 2008.
Her co-defendant, David Randolph Gray was charged with aggravated assault, grand larceny, and homicide. He, too, was sentenced to death by lethal injection. His sentence was reversed in May 1987, by the U. S. Supreme Court, in Gray v. Mississippi, 481 U.S. 648, on the basis "a qualified juror was excluded from his trial". He is currently serving a life sentence in Central Mississippi Correctional Facility.

Cast