Post by bistro on Oct 21, 2013 17:52:21 GMT -5
Prosecution, Police Injustice Unraveled in Riveting "West of Memphis" Documentary
Wednesday, 09 October 2013 10:26 By Mark Karlin, Truthout
West of Memphis offers a gripping insight into how those who administer justice can be complicit in egregious injustice. Get the DVD and support Truthout by clicking here.
Director Amy Berg's West of Memphis is a searing indictment of prosecution misconduct in the conviction of three poor white teenagers for the barbarous 1993 murders of three young boys. Three young men, vulnerable to prosecution because they were - according to one person interviewed in the film - "white trash" (and therefore powerless and subject to stereotype by the justice system and mass media) spent 18 years in prison. Berg's carefully documented account makes a riveting argument for the innocence of Jessie Misskelley, Damien Echols and Jason Baldwin - and how their conviction served the interests of those within the justice system, but not justice.
What emerges in West of Memphis (the case also was covered in a series of three HBO documentaries, the Paradise Lost series, and is the subject of a fictionalized account, Devil's Knot, by Canadian director Atom Egoyan, released this year) is a portrait of a justice system based on political self-interest, laziness, ineptitude and closing a case at all costs. Up to the moment that the three convicted defendants were released, key judicial players, members of the prosecution and politicians had an interest in maintaining the validity of the original conviction despite evidence that had emerged to the contrary.
Berg, in her director's notes to the film, describes corruption within judicial systems using the phrase "just us." She elaborates that "the term encapsulates the idea that rather than an equitable court of justice, there are only authorities who control the system." (more)
truth-out.org/news/item/19302-prosecution-police-injustice-unraveled-in-riveting-west-of-memphis-documentary
Wednesday, 09 October 2013 10:26 By Mark Karlin, Truthout
West of Memphis offers a gripping insight into how those who administer justice can be complicit in egregious injustice. Get the DVD and support Truthout by clicking here.
Director Amy Berg's West of Memphis is a searing indictment of prosecution misconduct in the conviction of three poor white teenagers for the barbarous 1993 murders of three young boys. Three young men, vulnerable to prosecution because they were - according to one person interviewed in the film - "white trash" (and therefore powerless and subject to stereotype by the justice system and mass media) spent 18 years in prison. Berg's carefully documented account makes a riveting argument for the innocence of Jessie Misskelley, Damien Echols and Jason Baldwin - and how their conviction served the interests of those within the justice system, but not justice.
What emerges in West of Memphis (the case also was covered in a series of three HBO documentaries, the Paradise Lost series, and is the subject of a fictionalized account, Devil's Knot, by Canadian director Atom Egoyan, released this year) is a portrait of a justice system based on political self-interest, laziness, ineptitude and closing a case at all costs. Up to the moment that the three convicted defendants were released, key judicial players, members of the prosecution and politicians had an interest in maintaining the validity of the original conviction despite evidence that had emerged to the contrary.
Berg, in her director's notes to the film, describes corruption within judicial systems using the phrase "just us." She elaborates that "the term encapsulates the idea that rather than an equitable court of justice, there are only authorities who control the system." (more)
truth-out.org/news/item/19302-prosecution-police-injustice-unraveled-in-riveting-west-of-memphis-documentary