Are Stephen King's intentions in the novel, The Green Mile, portrayed in the film of the same name?

In The Green Mile, although there are
some minor changes between the novel and the film's script, I think Stephen King's
intent is preserved in the movie.

There are minor changes
that do not affect the story's outcome in film.

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One of the trademarks of Stephen King's writing
[his]... moral earnestness... The Green Mile's...purpose is to
kindle the reader's [viewers] outrage at the inhumanity and capriciousness of the death
penalty.

In both the movie
and film, the narrator is:

Paul Edgecombe [who]...combines
a powerful empathy with the condemned men with a tendency to ponder the ethical and
spiritual implications of events. Paul's compelling voice is the novel's moral
center.

Perhaps the major difference
is found in the character of John Coffey:

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In the novel there is strong evidence to suggest
John Coffey is innocent. This is interpreted by Paul Edgecomb the narrator. The
confusion of the tracking dogs is a major part of this. In the movie this is transformed
into the scene where John Coffey grabs Paul Edgecomb's hand and transfers the image from
William Wharton, the real killer, to
Paul.

However, the result is
the same: that the audience believes that John is
innocent.

In studying the issue of capital punishment, we
see in both versions men who are evil personified and deserve to die, and still others
where the decision is not clearly black and white.

It would
seem that William "Billy the Kid" Wharton is someone who should have been executed, and
he is in a way, but not in the chair. Percy Wetmore is vicious and sadistic: he, too, is
punished, but not with physical death. However, with John Coffey, the audience knows,
both in the book and the film, that there is more to this man than meets the eye. He is
a gentle spirit:

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The imagery surrounding Coffey is, however, the
most explicitly Christ-like. Next to nothing is known of Jesus before His thirties, when
He began His public ministry. Similarly, Paul can find no clues to Coffey's life before
his disastrous attempt to heal the Detterick twins, except what can be deduced from the
scars that cover his body. Coffey, like Jesus, heals, exorcises demons, and brings the
dead back to life. Coffey heals Paul's urinary infection, draws the demon (...a brain
tumor) out of Melinda, and brings Mr. Jingles back from the dead after Percy has crushed
the mouse.

These perceptions
are present in both versions. Paul Edgecombe and Brutus "Brutal" Howell (and others) are
haunted by the execution of John Coffey. The death of this unusual man drives home the
idea that capital punishment, through the judicial system, makes mistakes that can never
be corrected.

In the novel and the film, King allows the
audience to experience the pure evil of some men, and the puzzling goodness in others.
Murder is murder, but the novel and the movie make us look at capital punishment in a
[then] twentieth-century context, where there are many more shades of
grey.

The changes between the novel and the film still
carry the weight of King's message. He gives his audience reason to ponder the wisdom of
men, and to see the irony of goodness in the convicted (Coffey) and evil in the
establishment (Wetmore). Long after the Depression is over, King's message against the
use of capital punishment is still relevant, and loses nothing between paper and
film.