Remembering 'Fourteen Days in May'

Edward Earl Johnson was executed in a Mississippi gas chamber 24 years ago today, on 20 May 1987.

Edward, a young African American convicted of the murder of a white police officer, spent 7 years on the Mississippi state penitentiary’s death row before he was executed at the age of 26. He protested his innocence to the end, claiming that his confession had been forced out of him by police, who took him to the woods to question him and threatened to kill him on the spot.

The award-winning documentary Fourteen Days in May tells the story of the fight to save Edward’s life in the countdown to his execution, with Reprieve's Director Clive Stafford Smith representing him in his final appeals.

With access to Edward and his family , the prison warden, guards and chaplain, this film provides a unique insight into the final days of Edward's life while he awaits execution, as well as life in the brutal death row prisons of the US. It also sheds light on the vital work that Clive and Reprieve continue to do to this day.

Fourteen Days in May was produced and directed by Reprieve's founding trustee Paul Hamann, who received the BFI's Grierson Award for the film.

Please order the DVD from Reprieve; all proceeds support our work.