The Pelican Brief

A law school student finds herself on the run with a reporter when she correctly speculates the reasons for the overnight assassinations of 2 Supreme Court justices.

The Pelican Brief is a legal crime thriller based on the novel by the same name written by John Grisham. Two Supreme Court justices are assassinated. They had been very different in their voting patterns and opinions in cases that had come before them. Tulane law student Darby Shaw theorizes that there may be some similarity in their otherwise-different voting patterns that may provide a motive for their assassinations. She discovers that both were protective of the environment (the only subject the two agreed on) in their votes. Research also reveals that the Fifth Circuit ruling, contrary to a corporation's financial interest, had ruled in favor of protecting an expanse of wetlands in Louisiana used by pelicans and other wildlife as a habitat.