Been thinking about The Shawshank Redemption and how good of a decision it was not to give the specifics of the murder Red committed. It means you have to judge him based on who he is now, not what he's done in the past. If they'd specified that it was something particularly bad, like in the book, some people would be less sympathetic towards him, but if he'd been justified there might be a temptation to make him the exception. By not specifying it really communicates that ultimately what he did is irrelevant, because he's still a person worthy of compassion regardless of the mistakes he's made in the past and no one deserves to experience the American prison system.