The other day, I watched the 1961 film Judgement at Nuremberg. It was the first time in decades that I watched the Stanley Kramer film. Judge Dan Haywood (played by Spencer Tracy) confronts defendants who insist they were merely enforcing the law. His response is not angry or theatrical. It is measured and devastatingly honest.
“The defendants claim the law bound them,” Haywood explains, before reminding the court that law divorced from conscience is not justice at all.
That warning resonates painfully in the wake of the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, who was killed by a federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent in Minneapolis. As defendant Dr. Ernst Janning admits in the film during the tribunal, he knew, “I had reached my verdict on the Feldstein case (a death penalty offense for having a relationship with a Jewish woman) before I ever came into the courtroom. I would have found him guilty, whatever the evidence.”
Earlier in the day, I listened to President Trump and his cabinet members label Renee Good, and their decision about what happened within two hours of the shooting. Good was called a domestic terrorist. Her intent was declared criminal. Claims were made—without public proof—that she tried to run down an ICE agent. Connections were suggested to “leftist radical groups.” At the same time, federal authorities took investigative control away from state and local agencies, consolidating authority over both evidence and the story. Vice President Vance said the ICE agent involved “has absolute immunity.”
This was before crime-scene tape was removed, before a full investigation had started, and before local law enforcement had access to evidence. Meanwhile, federal officials moved quickly to draw conclusions. That is not transparency; it is narrative preemption. The aftermath grew even more horrifying before any independent law enforcement agency had a chance to review all the evidence.
In the film, Judge Haywood warned against this very impulse: The tendency of institutions to protect themselves before uncovering the truth. In one of the film’s most memorable moments, he reminds the court that the crime did not start with mass violence but with a single moral compromise. After Janning expressed regret and shame for making a pre-trial decision, he had abandoned his legal and ethical responsibilities as a jurist. “It came to that the first time you sentenced a man to death, you knew to be innocent,” Judge Haywood told him.
The point isn’t about historical guilt. It’s a process. When authority determines outcomes before facts, justice turns into theater.
In Minneapolis, officials declared the Good shooting justified almost immediately, as if legality alone settles morality. But as Haywood emphasizes, legality is not a moral shield.
“A judge cannot escape responsibility by saying, ‘That was the law.’”
—Judge Dan Haywood
This is where the parallel becomes inevitable.
When federal power labels a civilian a terrorist before evidence is tested, when investigators are sidelined in favor of institutional control, and when the public trust is asked to accept conclusions rather than facts—obedience replaces judgment, and authority replaces accountability.
Political philosopher Hannah Arendt famously called this the “banality of evil.” It’s not evil driven by hatred, but by unquestioning compliance. Judgment at Nuremberg highlights the same truth: The most dangerous actors are not those who shout, but those who calmly insist they followed procedure.
Haywood’s final warning isn’t just for Germany. It’s for any society tempted to mistake power for righteousness.
“If he is not guilty, then no man is guilty.”
—Judge Dan Haywood
In other words, if authority alone determines innocence, justice stops existing.
The outrage over Renee Good’s death isn’t about hostility toward law enforcement. It’s about process, restraint, and truth—values that journalism exists to defend. When the state rushes to judgment, journalists must slow it down. When officials make conclusions, reporters must demand evidence. When power demands obedience, democracy needs scrutiny.
What happened in Minneapolis is shameful not only because a woman died, but because the “message management” machinery of authority moved faster than the search for truth.
Judgment at Nuremberg* reminds us why that is important. The moment institutions decide they cannot be questioned is when justice starts to break down.
And the moment we cease asking questions is the moment obedience turns into guilt.
*Judgment at Nuremberg is a fictional movie with fictional characters. However, the themes and character types were inspired by the 12 Nuremberg Tribunals that started two years after World War II ended.