Feb. 28
USA: The Trials of Darryl Hunt and the Legacy of Criminal Justice Docs In the January 19th edition of The New York Times critic Mahnola Dargis observed that every year The Sundance Film Festival includes a documentary that is a variation on the same film. She then proceeded to discuss The Trials of Darryl Hunt as this year's "tear-jerker," a spot that she suggests was held by After Innocence the year before. Dargis characterizes these films as well-intended and formally bland -- the kind of feel-good-about feeling bad movies that solicit audience indignation. I must admit my bias here. I was Associate Producer and Outreach Director for another one of these criminal justice documentaries that played at Sundance in 2004, Deadline. While working on Deadline and its outreach campaign, I was constantly met with people who were skeptical about the importance of these films and who would dismiss documentaries that criticized the criminal justice system as anti-death penalty and missable. Many of these people could not even tell one film from another. They saw Dead Man Walking as the same as The Farm as the same as The Thin Blue Line and so on. In fact, much of the work I did when I traveled with Deadline was to help people understand the differences between these films and their potential impacts. Understanding why a work about a wrongfully convicted man is different than one about conditions in prison is understanding, in a real way, what is happening in our criminal justice system. Sundance has a history of bringing documentaries into the spotlight. Robert Redford in a speech he gave opening night in Park City, said he was most proud of this legacy. He feels that Sundance has played a major role in the boom of documentaries in recent years. Indeed, Sundance has featured many criminal justice docs, from Brother's Keeper to The Farm and many others. The profiles of these films changed significanctly once they were in the festival and many have had successful, high-impact outreach campaigns. Many of these documentaries discuss the flaws that exist within the criminal justice system and bring to light the injustices that average citizens do not see. Most importantly, these films help the general public to understand the complexity of these issues and the bureaucracy that exists to keep people in the dark. After Innocence focuses on life after exoneration and the struggles of seven men who try to rebulid their lives after the system has done them wrong. The Farm tells the story of one prison in Louisiana, and Deadline tells the story of Governor George Ryan's examination of Illinois' flawed capital punishment system. As for the educational potential of these films, Steve Bright, Director of the Southern Center for Human Rights, and one of the hardest working lawyers in the US, put it best: "The criminal courts deal almost exclusively with poor people and most people are completely unaware of how poorly it functions, the racial discrimination, and how it has become a dumping ground for the mentally ill, homeless people, etc. People also have no idea how harsh and degrading the system is, or the huge volume of people who are processed through it. The legislatures and federal courts are largely indifferent to the lack of fairness in the criminal courts and the excessive sentences that are being imposed, so documentaries are the best hope for change with regard to criminal justice policy." Katie Brown, one of the producers of The Trials of Darryl Hunt, which premiered at this year's Sundance Film Festival, feels honored by the legacy of these criminal justice films. "These issues are something everybody needs to take seriously. These films are so dynamically different from each other. I think it's great to keep building on the legacies of these films. It has branches and branches. The depth is so huge." The Trials of Darryl Hunt documents the aftermath of the brutal rape/murder of Deborah Sykes, a young white newspaper reporter, and the subsequent conviction of Darryl Hunt, one of the most shocking wrongful convictions in US History. After being convicted on circumstancial evidence, Darryl sat on Death Row for twenty years. Filmmakers Ricki Stern and Annie Sundberg painstakingly frame the judicial and emotional responses to this chilling crime and the implications surrounding Hunt's conviction against a backdrop of class and racial bias in America. Sundance was the film's world premiere. The filmmakers had already secured HBO as their broadcaster and they came to the festival to find DVD and theatrical distribution. But being at Sundance also generated an invaluable sense of validation. As Brown explains, "The festival solidifies the potential of this film to reach a different audience." Darryl Hunt was there with his wife April and the lawyer that fought for decades to try to save him, Mark Rabil. Since this was the world premiere, the filmmakers had not had the opportunity to see the film with an audience before and the response was overwhelming. Trials tells the story of a single case over several decades. It also captures the strength and conviction that it takes to remain hopeful and positive when the entire world is seemingly against you. Darryl's story touches people personally and having met him at the screening, I can say that this special quality he posses touched me as well. His presence at screenings will be a crucial element of their outreach campaign. Brown does not see Trials as just an anti-death penalty film. "The film looks at a flawed justice system. It is such a human film and so people can relate to it on every level. You can oddly enough relate to Darryl. This isn't just one person. Darryl is not an isolated incident." The producers have planned a multi-tiered outreach campaign that they will be directly overseeing. They are in the first phase, which consists of screenings at festivals with national outreach partners and Darryl present. They are solidifying their full list of partners, but so far they are are working with The Innocence Project, Open Society Institute and National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. Their main goal is to bring attention to Darryl's foundation, The Darryl Hunt Project for Freedom and Justice. The foundation works with wrongfully incarcerated individuals to get their lives back on track, and it helps ex-offenders obtain the skills, guidance and support they need to adapt to life outside the prison system. Brown hopes to "get people to talk about Darryl. What is he experiencing now? The film really is a forum for him to talk about this foundation and his experiences." Brown sees this 1st phase of outreach as crucial in generating interest in the film and furthering its overall impact. "The goal of having these screenings before our 2007 broadcast is to create attention around the film. The sneak preview factor is helpful is getting us in the door. Once people have heard about the film, they might tune in in 2007 and most importantly, they will know that the film is a tool that is out there to be used." Currently Brown is fielding requests to show the film all over the country. If someone is interested in using the film, she works with them to coordinate a screening that fits into the filmmakers' travel schedule. For example, they might have Darryl speak at a high-school while they are in the same town for a festival. They will try to do as many events like these as possible leading up to the HBO broadcast. Sundance's legacy of featuring criminal justice docs like The Trials of Darryl Hunt ties into the festival's broader commitment to celebrating media for social change. By being associated with films like this year's star-studded Friends with Money or Little Miss Sunshine brings a cache to Trials that it might not have otherwise had. Upcoming screenings include: March 2, 7pm, Baltimore, MD: Panel and Screening with Darryl Hunt, Mark Rabil & filmmakers At the Megaphone Project for Views of Justice March 17-19, Seattle, WA: Panel and Screening with Darryl Hunt, Mark Rabil & filmmakers At the Innocence Network Conference April 6-9, Raleigh, NC Panel, screenings, and a benefit for the The Darryl Hunt Project for Freedom and Justice Full Frame Documentary Film Festival (source: MediaRights) *************** The punitive obsession When in the early 19th century the study of the punishment of crime and of prison management acquired the status of a science called penology, most Western states were in the process of reducing their reliance on capital punishment and developing new systems of incarceration. Penologists and politicians debated and experimented with disciplinary regimes and prison architecture, and finally came down in favour of a system of partial or complete solitary confinement. The theory, strongly influenced by religious groups such as the Pennsylvania Quakers, was that "insulation" of the criminal prevented cross-contamination, prepared the mind for reforming influences, promoted "penitence" (hence the penitentiary) and led to rehabilitation. For the most part, then or since, few of these objectives were ever achieved. But the belief in the necessity of punitive imprisonment has persisted and spread word wide. Moreover, the belief in capital punishment never disappeared, and its use has fluctuated sharply in different eras and countries, despite widely accepted historical and scientific evidence that it is ineffective as a deterrent and makes criminal justice systems arbitrary, uncertain, capricious and frequently unjust. In the last 30 years capital punishment has become an international yardstick against which respect for human rights can be measured. The push for its abolition has had considerable success. When Amnesty International convened an International Conference on the Death Penalty in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1977, only 16 countries had abolished capital punishment for all crimes. Today the figure stands at 86, with over 40 countries having abolished death for all crimes since 1990; another 11 countries have abolished the death penalty for all but exceptional crimes (such as wartime offences), and a further 25 countries are abolitionist in practice, having as either policy or established practice not carried out any executions for the past 10 years or more. Only 74 countries and territories retain and use the death penalty, but the number of countries which actually execute prisoners in any one year is much smaller. During 2004, at least 3,797 people were executed in 25 countries, with 97 % of all known executions being in China, Iran, Viet Nam and the United States of America. Each year since 1997 the United Nations Commission on Human Rights has passed a resolution calling on countries that have not abolished the death penalty to establish a moratorium on executions, with the number of supporting states steadily increasing. In America, the only Western democracy to carry out frequent executions, the issue of capital punishment is constantly debated. The consensus against executions in the 1960s and early 1970s as an unconstitutional "cruel and unusual punishment" has swung towards widely varying application in different states. There are more than 3,400 prisoners on "death row" in US prisons. This is despite the fact that, since 1973, evidence that they were innocent has led to the release of 122 prisoners sentenced to death. In 2004 there were 6 such cases, and 3 up to December 2005. Forensic science, particularly DNA sampling, has been crucial. However, the "law and order" and "tough on violence" mantras often prevail. As Governor of Texas from 1994 to 2000, President George Bush presided over 152 executions. As is often the case, specific executions focus debate. In December 2005 Nguyen Tuong Van, a young Australian arrested in transit to Melbourne and convicted of heroin smuggling, was executed in Singapore, despite appeals for clemency from the Australian Government, lawyers, religious leaders and others. His death sentence was mandatory, illustrating the inherent injustice of all mandatory sentencing. Moreover, this execution and other cases in Bali have raised the issue of Australian police co-operation with states still executing people. Attorney General Phillip Ruddock correctly described capital punishment as "barbaric", ignoring the blatant hypocrisy of his long-held position on Guantanamo inmate David Hicks. In December 2005, Stanley "Tookie" Williams, executed at San Quentin, California, for murder, became one of the slightly more than the 1,000th American executed since the USA Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1977. Williams, one of the founders of the notorious "Crips" street gang in Los Angeles in the early 1970s, was convicted of 4 murders on less than convincing evidence (he always claimed innocence) in 1981. While on death row he became an anti-violence advocate, renounced gang culture and wrote a series of childrens books about the dangers of gang life. California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger rejected his final appeal for clemency, saying he was clearly guilty and had never admitted guilt or shown remorse. Among other things, the public debate surrounding this and other cases emphasised the clear racial bias against Afro-Americans evident in the statistics. In those countries where the death penalty has been abolished, imprisonment has become the panacea for all social ailments. In New South Wales, according to recent Department of Corrective Services figures, following an increase of 7 % last year, there are now more than 9,000 people in gaol. This is about one in 600 adults in the state, a rate that has almost doubled since the mid-1980s. The average prison population has increased by about 400 inmates - equivalent to one extra prison a year - for the last 7 years. These increases have been driven by the legislative outcomes of the never-ending "law and order debate", particularly tougher sentences, restrictive sentencing guidelines, tougher bail application rules and the targeting of repeat offenders. More than 1/2 the prisoners are serving sentences longer than 2 years. NSW prisons also have tough internal regimes. Inmates are allowed fewer hours out of their cells than any other state. But the benefits of all this are highly dubious. NSW has the highest rate of recidivism (re-offending) in Australia. Professor Chris Cunneen, Director of the NSW Institute of Criminology, has made the point: "You could argue that youre providing community protection by putting people in custody but you are not providing any rehabilitative impact." One of the worst aspects of the punitive obsession is the unthinking willingness to impose minimum sentences, in many ways a disguised push for the even more extreme mandatory sentencing. Both seriously damage the discretionary role of the courts, an indispensable component of genuine fairness. As NSW Chief Justice Jim Spigelman stated in 1999, "Unless judges are able to mould the sentence to the circumstances of the individual case then, irrespective of how much legislative forethought has gone into the determination of a particular regime, there will always be the prospect of injustice". Another unacceptable aspect of the law and order bandwagon is the effect on minorities. The incarceration rate for Indigenous Australians is 1 in 50 in NSW, largely as a result of tougher sentencing and tougher bail law requirements for supervision and accommodation. Professor Cunneen has pointed out: "The changes in bail laws particularly affect marginalised groups, because they are less likely to be employed or at school." In short, prisons are becoming large-scale warehouses, many inmates being on remand, not yet tried, let alone convicted. The whole "law and order" agenda is driven by a media willing to label and stigmatise particular groups, and politicians seeking cheap publicity and electoral support. Both support morally bankrupt and largely inefficient policies. The recent reactions to the racially-motivated violence in Sydneys beachside suburbs in December 2005 fully illustrate the utterly irrational essence of the punitive obsession. In mid-January the Leader of the NSW Opposition, Peter Debenham, attacking the Government for being "soft" on one group of participants, stated that the authorities should "lock up 200 Middle Eastern thugs." When the Lebanese community justifiably deplored this, he demonstrated his fairness by demanding the arrest of 1,000 young gang members (including not just those of Middle Eastern background) involved in "crime, organised crime and drugs." Implementation of such policies would require at least two new prisons (or simply worsen the present overcrowding), would victimise and criminalise youth from stereotyped ethnic minorities, create a future larger group of real criminals, create serious injustices and resentment, and do little to solve the problems at the core of the conflict. Of course, Premier Morris Iemma responded by calling Debenham a "liar", and assuring the public that his Government was definitely not "soft on ethnic crime." The essential problem with the punitive obsession is that is not only ineffectual, expensive and counter-productive, but it is lazy rhetoric posing as policy, preventing the serious search for constructive alternatives. It is morally bankrupt and inherently unjust. Moreover, it is in itself a form of violence, which fosters an even broader culture of violence and tolerance of injustice. (source: OnlineOpinion - Dr Ken Macnab is an historian and President of the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies (CPACS) at the University of Sydney, in Australia) ******************* Death By Lethal Injection a Crime in Itself The Supreme Court recently blocked 2 lethal injections in Florida pending its ruling this spring in a case that could decide whether death row inmates are able to delay their executions to raise civil rights claims. The claim: Lethal injection constitutes "cruel and unusual punishment," thereby violating the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution. The debate concerning lethal injection has only deepened in the past month, turning the whole execution process into a farce so misguided that it would almost be humorous if lives were not at stake. Lethal injection was once heralded as a humane way to kill, but a recent study published in the Lancet, a respected British medical journal, claims that it is anything but. The study concluded that in 43 out of 49 executions studied, the inmate may have been semi-conscious yet paralyzed when the heart-stopping drug, potassium chloride, was administered. In other words, the inmates could have been at least partially aware and in excruciating pain while trapped inside their bodies, unable to flail or cry out. Based on these developments, a U.S. district judge ruled last week that the state of California could go through with its lethal injection of Michael Morales - a 46-year-old convicted of murder in 1983 - if it altered its execution procedure. The 1st choice was to only administer the 1st type of drug thereby greatly prolonging the execution. The 2nd choice was to ask for the assistance of medical personnel. California chose to go forward with the execution by employing two registered anesthesiologists to assist in the execution chamber - a move denounced by the California Medical Association and the American Society of Anesthesiologists and which was in violation of the American Medical Associations code of ethics. "An anesthesiologist who enters the death chamber is clearly violating national and internationally established medical ethics," said Jonathan Groner of the Ohio State University College of Medicine and Public Health in a statement. "Not since Nazi physicians supervised the killing of mentally and physically disabled individuals ... have high-ranking physicians become so intimately involved in state-sponsored killing." The two anesthesiologists brought in to consult on the execution ultimately refused to participate after the judge declared they would have to intervene to assist in death if the patient were to be in pain. The same judge also declared that the doctors would have to administer the drugs themselves. The anesthesiologists walked out in a courageous move of great integrity, refusing to actively contribute to the prisoner's death. President Bush, who presided over 152 executions as the governor of Texas, claims that he promotes a culture of life. This week, meanwhile, the state of California attempted to employ doctors - professionals meant to utilize their education only to save lives - to help take a life. While some may claim that executing an individual will deter other criminals from killing, studies have shown that this is simply not the case. Research has shown, however, that the death penalty is imposed unfairly based on economics and the race of the perpetrator and victim, that 122 people have been released from death row since 1978 and that even the most humane methods of execution can amount to "cruel and unusual punishment." Michael Morales committed a horrific crime. We should not enlist our nations physicians to commit their own atrocities. (source: The Hoya - Katherine McCullough is a senior in the College and treasurer of the GU Campaign to End the Death Penalty; Georgetown University) TENNESSEE: Mother fights to bury her daughter more than 10 years after she's murdered Christa Pike was convicted in 1995 of torturing and killing a Florida woman. She is accused of stabbing Colleen Slemmer hundreds of times and carving a satanic sign into her chest. Monday Pike was back in court in Knoxville to start another round of appeals. Colleen Slemmer's mother came from Florida to be here. She says it is time for the case to end. "Reliving the fact that my child is still not buried, reliving the fact that the killer's sitting there laughing, joking, playing around, sending notes the whole time we're in there," said Colleen Slemmer's mother May Martinez. Facing her daughter's killer never gets easier. But May Martinez will do whatever she has to to finally see her daughter at peace. "I want it to be over. I want my daughter back. I want what belongs to me. They didn't have her, I did," said Martinez. They still have part of her. Colleen Slemmer's skull is evidence in the case against Pike. Since the case is not over, attorneys have not given it to her mother yet. Martinez is trying to get it back so she can finally bury her daughter. Monday in court, the judge told the attorneys to try to find a way to preserve the evidence and return Slemmer's remains to her mother. "They're going to try, that's not giving me no hope at all. That's just going to give me another 20 years of my daughter not being buried, and I don't want that," said Martinez. Martinez says she would even agree to taking Pike off death row because if she could lay her daughter to rest it would mean everything to her. "It could be over with. I wouldn't have to live this stuff anymore. I wouldn't have nightmare after nightmare," said Martinez. Christa Pike will be back in a Knoxville courtroom for her appeal in September. (source: WBIR News)
