Laura Dern Fights to Save a Man from Execution in Powerful Trial by Fire Scene

Laura Dern is taking on the tragic case of Cameron Todd Willingham in Trial by Fire.

The Big Little Lies actress takes on Elizabeth Gilbert, a school teacher who begins investigating Willingham’s case as he sits on death row. Willingham, played by Jack O’Connell, was convicted and sentenced to death for the arson death of his three young daughters, even though there was mounting evidence of his innocence.

In a PEOPLE exclusive scene, Dern’s Gilbert excitedly outlines all the evidence they have to prove his innocence and appeal Willingham’s conviction again.

“Listen to me, his story stinks. You know why? That guy’s a snitch. I think the DA paid somebody to pay him off,” Girlbert tells Willingham at the jail.

“But do you understand what that means? We got a snitch, a gas can that was never found and Stacy’s testimony. Look at all this evidence!” Gilbert points out, saying that they can appeal again to the 5th circuit court.

But Todd isn’t convinced after the same court denied his appeals already.

“I only got one more left, it’s gonna go the same way as all the others,” he tells her. “I wanna live.”

“That’s why we’re not gonna give up for one second. So life isn’t fair. What are we going to do with that?” Liz says as the clip ends.

Willingham was eventually executed in 2004 in Texas for the 1991 death of his three daughters: two-year-old Amber Louise Kuykendall and one-year-old twins Karmon Diane Willingham and Kameron Marie Willingham. His then-wife mother of his children, Stacy, maintained his innocence even though she wasn’t home at the time of the fire.

Trial by Fire, based upon New Yorker article by the same name, hits theaters on May 17.