Death penalty film trip: 5,000 miles of flaws and false confessions
~~Tom Dart in Conroe, Texas
One for Ten project comes to an end having filmed series of shorts highlighting injustice in US capital punishment system
The journey has taken them from Philadelphia to Albuquerque via false confession, unreliable witnesses, official misconduct and racism.
The One for Ten road trip comes to an end this week after a 5,200-mile cross-country trek to interview 10 death row exonerees and make a short film about each that highlights different flaws in the US capital punishment process.
The name of the project is inspired by the more than 1,300 executions and 142 exonerations since the death penalty was reinstated in the US in 1976 – a remarkably high number of errors considering the gravity of the punishment and avowed thoroughness of the system.
London-based film-makers Will Francome and Mark Pizzey and producers Laura Shacham and Megan Garner have shared a 30ft RV for the trip, editing footage as they travel in order to publish two films a week on their website, oneforten.com.
They have raised nearly £36,000 to cover costs, including £19,500 from individual donors via crowd-sourced funding. The main innovation of One for Ten is its interactivity, with viewers encouraged to participate through social media.
"By doing it in this way people can submit questions, give feedback on the films and give the project a sense of immediacy. No one had ever really tried anything like this. People have been donating, submitting questions for interviewees and we'll blog those back to them. We're tweeting out some answers while the interviews are going on," said Francome.
The film-makers are now in New Mexico to meet Juan Melendez. He spent more than 17 years on death row in Florida, convicted largely thanks to testimony from a convicted felon who held a grudge against him - even though another man had made a confession in a recorded interview that was never played at trial.
The Guardian met up with the team in Conroe, Texas, as they interviewed Clarence Brandley for a documentary themed on racism, which is now available on the website.
Brandley spent nearly 10 years on death row, twice coming within days of execution. His case was a notorious miscarriage of justice that garnered immense media attention after being taken up by civil rights activists.
Brandley worked as a custodian at Conroe high school. In August, 1980, he and another custodian, Henry Peace, found the body of Cheryl Fergeson in a loft above the school's auditorium. Visiting for a volleyball tournament, the 16-year-old had been raped and strangled.
Investigators immediately focused on Brandley. During their interrogation a police officer reportedly told Brandley and Peace, "One of you two is going to hang for this." He turned to Brandley, adding: "Since you're the nigger, you're elected."
There was no physical evidence linking Brandley to the crime, but he went on trial before an all-white jury in December, 1980. A hung jury resulted in a second trial, which took place in 1981 before another all-white jury.
Months after Brandley was found guilty and sentenced to death, it emerged that evidence that might have proved his innocence had been withheld and then lost by the prosecution. Authorities subsequently failed to act on new information linking other men with the crime.
It was not until 1990 that Brandley was finally freed. He mounted an unsuccessful lawsuit for alleged civil rights violations and has been denied compensation because the court order that freed him did not explicitly state that he is innocent. He claims he is still being pursued for child support payments that the state says were due during his time in prison.
Texas is the most prolific capital punishment state and is on target to execute its 500th prisoner since 1982 next month. Brandley is one of only 12 Texas exonerees, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
"I think the scariest thing about Clarence's case … it's in its own time, right, but just how openly racist it could be and the lengths that people would go to frame him when it seems pretty clear that it was other people," said Francome.
According to 2010 Census figures, 11.8% of Texas' population is black. But 39.4% of the 284 people currently on Texas' death row are black.
Brandley said that he believes racism is still endemic in Conroe, a city of about 60,000 inhabitants 40 miles north of Houston and 30 miles south of Huntsville, the location of Texas' execution chamber. Now 61, he has let go of his anger: "I had to, because it was going to destroy me, make me do something that I would be guilty of."
Still, he will never forget the justice system's corruption and contempt. "They lied to my family, they lied to the victim's family," he said. "And the way [prison guards] treated my family when they came to visit ... One of the times, they opened up the windows when it was cold. Summertime, they closed up the windows."
Francome has observed recurring trends during the five-week trip. "I'm just shocked at how many of the same things come up in everyone's cases. So few of the people that we filmed with had adequate legal defence. Most people met their lawyers once, twice, for a few hours before their trial started. When you're facing death … that has shocked me," he said.
"And how much they all talk about how there are definitely still loads more innocent people on death row. From their experiences of being on there and knowing other people, they all say they know people on death row today who are innocent.
"America's never admitted to executing anyone innocent, but here we are in Texas and Cameron Todd Willingham and Carlos DeLuna are pretty clearly two guys that were executed and were innocent. So there's obviously many flaws. Hopefully this will do something to help raise awareness in coming to abolish the death penalty. In my eyes it's just too great a risk to have it."
As Brandley put it: "One mistake is too many". He is sure that America will one day abolish the death penalty. "There's no doubt in my mind, it's coming. When, I don't know. It might not be in my lifetime but who would have thought in my lifetime I'd have seen him?" he said, pointing to his T-shirt, which bore a picture of Barack Obama with the slogan, "The Dream Comes True".
The One for Ten road trip comes to an end this week after a 5,200-mile cross-country trek to interview 10 death row exonerees and make a short film about each that highlights different flaws in the US capital punishment process.
London-based film-makers Will Francome and Mark Pizzey and producers Laura Shacham and Megan Garner have shared a 30ft RV for the trip, editing footage as they travel in order to publish two films a week on their website, oneforten.com.
They have raised nearly £36,000 to cover costs, including £19,500 from individual donors via crowd-sourced funding. The main innovation of One for Ten is its interactivity, with viewers encouraged to participate through social media.
"By doing it in this way people can submit questions, give feedback on the films and give the project a sense of immediacy. No one had ever really tried anything like this. People have been donating, submitting questions for interviewees and we'll blog those back to them. We're tweeting out some answers while the interviews are going on," said Francome.
The film-makers are now in New Mexico to meet Juan Melendez. He spent more than 17 years on death row in Florida, convicted largely thanks to testimony from a convicted felon who held a grudge against him - even though another man had made a confession in a recorded interview that was never played at trial.
The Guardian met up with the team in Conroe, Texas, as they interviewed Clarence Brandley for a documentary themed on racism, which is now available on the website.
Brandley spent nearly 10 years on death row, twice coming within days of execution. His case was a notorious miscarriage of justice that garnered immense media attention after being taken up by civil rights activists.
Brandley worked as a custodian at Conroe high school. In August, 1980, he and another custodian, Henry Peace, found the body of Cheryl Fergeson in a loft above the school's auditorium. Visiting for a volleyball tournament, the 16-year-old had been raped and strangled.
Investigators immediately focused on Brandley. During their interrogation a police officer reportedly told Brandley and Peace, "One of you two is going to hang for this." He turned to Brandley, adding: "Since you're the nigger, you're elected."
There was no physical evidence linking Brandley to the crime, but he went on trial before an all-white jury in December, 1980. A hung jury resulted in a second trial, which took place in 1981 before another all-white jury.
Months after Brandley was found guilty and sentenced to death, it emerged that evidence that might have proved his innocence had been withheld and then lost by the prosecution. Authorities subsequently failed to act on new information linking other men with the crime.
It was not until 1990 that Brandley was finally freed. He mounted an unsuccessful lawsuit for alleged civil rights violations and has been denied compensation because the court order that freed him did not explicitly state that he is innocent. He claims he is still being pursued for child support payments that the state says were due during his time in prison.
Texas is the most prolific capital punishment state and is on target to execute its 500th prisoner since 1982 next month. Brandley is one of only 12 Texas exonerees, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
"I think the scariest thing about Clarence's case … it's in its own time, right, but just how openly racist it could be and the lengths that people would go to frame him when it seems pretty clear that it was other people," said Francome.
According to 2010 Census figures, 11.8% of Texas' population is black. But 39.4% of the 284 people currently on Texas' death row are black.
Brandley said that he believes racism is still endemic in Conroe, a city of about 60,000 inhabitants 40 miles north of Houston and 30 miles south of Huntsville, the location of Texas' execution chamber. Now 61, he has let go of his anger: "I had to, because it was going to destroy me, make me do something that I would be guilty of."
Still, he will never forget the justice system's corruption and contempt. "They lied to my family, they lied to the victim's family," he said. "And the way [prison guards] treated my family when they came to visit ... One of the times, they opened up the windows when it was cold. Summertime, they closed up the windows."
Francome has observed recurring trends during the five-week trip. "I'm just shocked at how many of the same things come up in everyone's cases. So few of the people that we filmed with had adequate legal defence. Most people met their lawyers once, twice, for a few hours before their trial started. When you're facing death … that has shocked me," he said.
"And how much they all talk about how there are definitely still loads more innocent people on death row. From their experiences of being on there and knowing other people, they all say they know people on death row today who are innocent.
"America's never admitted to executing anyone innocent, but here we are in Texas and Cameron Todd Willingham and Carlos DeLuna are pretty clearly two guys that were executed and were innocent. So there's obviously many flaws. Hopefully this will do something to help raise awareness in coming to abolish the death penalty. In my eyes it's just too great a risk to have it."
As Brandley put it: "One mistake is too many". He is sure that America will one day abolish the death penalty. "There's no doubt in my mind, it's coming. When, I don't know. It might not be in my lifetime but who would have thought in my lifetime I'd have seen him?" he said, pointing to his T-shirt, which bore a picture of Barack Obama with the slogan, "The Dream Comes True".
Courtesy: The Guardian
