In Presumed Innocent, Harrison Ford's character Rusty Sabich spends most of the movie attempting to convince every other character in the movie and the audience of his innocence in Carolyn's murder. However, one of the reasons it is hard to believe Rusty when he says he is not Carolyn's murderer is that it is clear that he is guilty of some wrongs related to her death. Rusty's trial is dismissed, however, when misconduct by the prosecution is revealed and there is a lack of material evidence to convict him. It then seems as if Carolyn's murder would go unsolved until the second-to-last scene of the movie reveals that the murderer was actually Rusty's wife.
Despite the fact that Rusty's wife admits her guilt in the murder and explains the great lengths she went to to not only prevent the police from suspecting her, but implicate Rusty, it is clear that Rusty still experiences come guilt, some responsibility in the murder. He feels guilty for the affair with Carolyn (and the resulting obsession it created) as he has throughout the movie as it was a breaking of a rule and Rusty is a strict follower of rules. His wife's confession adds a new dimension to his guilt. Even if he was not the person to actually take Carolyn's life, he feels as though his actions and affair spurred his wife's actions, even that his wife was justified in her actions. In his mind, had he not had the affair and obsession with Carolyn, she would still be alive.
This guilt manifests itself in that he chooses to remain silent about his wife's guilt in the murder. He washes off the hammer, supposedly planning to never say anything to his wife about knowledge of her actions until she confesses to him. Even after the confession, he chooses not to turn her in, saying that it was an impracticality to try two people for the same crime and that he could not take his son's mother away from him. At the end of the movie, he speaks of a punishment, which presumably is a lifetime of guilt over the affair and responsibility in his death, a lifetime of guilt over not assigning blame and punishment to the murderer (which he clearly believes in throughout the movie), and a lifetime of living with a murderer.
Elise, remember his wife tells he should would have admitted her guilt had Rusty been convicted. Do you believe her, or do you think she thinks the death penalty is a proper punishment for infidelity. Much of the population would be eliminated were that the case.
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