Image courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics
In
May of 1993, 2nd graders Steven Branch, Michael Moore, and
Christopher Byers were brutally murdered in West Memphis, Arkansas. Outrage, fear, a loud cry for justice from
the community, and a botched police investigation led to the arrest of
teenagers Damien Echols, Jessie Misskelley, Jr., and Jason Baldwin, under the
belief they had committed the murders as part of a Satanic ritual. One year later, the defendants, collectively
known as the West Memphis 3, were charged, tried, and convicted for the
crime. Misskelley and Baldwin were
sentenced to life in prison. Echols was
sent to death row.
The
case of the West Memphis 3 garnered national attention thanks to the three
documentary films made for HBO by Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky about the
trial and its aftermath. When the first
film, Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at
Robin Hood Hills, hit the airwaves in 1996, people were aghast at the
injustice dealt by the Arkansas legal system to Echols, Baldwin, and
Misskelley. Various support groups across the country were formed to help the
WM3. With the 2000 release of their
second film, Paradise Lost 2: Revelations,
came even more public awareness along with celebrity backing of the WM3,
including a New Zeland filmmaker by the name of Peter Jackson.
Jackson
and his wife Fran Walsh contacted Echols via his wife, Lorri Davis, whom Echols
married in a 1996 Buddhist ceremony at the Arkansas correctional facility where
he was being held, offering support and anonymous financial assistance for
Echols and his newly assembled, top notch defense team. When the results of the new investigation revealed
nothing short of a gross miscarriage of justice, Echols’ attorneys submitted
their findings to the WM3’s original trial judge, David Burnett, who
immediately dismissed it.
At
that point, Jackson & Walsh decided it was time to make their own documentary
film and brought in director Amy Berg, whose last documentary, Deliver Us From Evil, got inside the
mind of a pedophile while exposing the blatant cover up of sex crimes within
the Catholic diocese. In West of Memphis, Berg exposes coerced
confessions, jury misconduct, recanted witness testimony, new witness
testimony, and exculpatory DNA evidence in the now infamous case against the
West Memphis 3.
In
September of 2011, Sinofsky and Berlinger released their third and final
installment in the Paradise Lost
series, which contains most of the same information that Berg’s film
offers. However, where the two films
differ is in the presentation of the new evidence. Paradise
Lost 3: Purgatory takes a journalistic approach to pointing the finger at
Terry Hobbs, the stepfather of Steven Branch, after DNA links him to the rope
used to tie the three victims. West of Memphis comes across as more of
an advocacy film as it goes straight for the jugular of Terry Hobbs. Not only does Berg catch him lying multiple
times to authorities on camera, she digs through his violent past, shows just
how much of a sonofabitch he really is, then turns around and drops one hell of
a bombshell via witness testimony from Hobbs’ own nephews.
Berg
was also able to gain interviews with the original trial prosecutor, Scott
Ellington, whom would not appear in the Paradise Lost films. When asked why, Ellington replied, “I need to
reach my voters.” Unfortunately,
Ellington’s selfish needs weren’t the only political concerns addressed in the
film, which also mentions how keeping the West Memphis 3 in jail is to the
career advantage of state officials, primarily Judge Burnett. None of the new evidence, including
exculpatory evidence, was never accepted by the courts until the case went
before a new judge.
Going
along with the state of Arkansas refusing to admit that they made a horrendous
mistake in convicting Echols, Baldwin, and Misskelley, is their confusing
Alford plea, which has them pleading guilty while maintaining their innocence. In essence, the Alford plea is the state’s
way of saying, “Oops. We screwed up, but
we’re not going to admit it. So, we’re
going to let you out of jail, but make you plead guilty so you can’t sue the
state for wrongful incarceration.”
It’s
enough to make you scream when Berg all but offers up Terry Hobbs on a platter
to the courts and law enforcement officials via the new DNA evidence and
witness testimony in the film, knowing that the state considers the case closed
and will not be pursuing any other suspects for the murders of Steven Branch,
Michael Myers, and Christopher Byers.
Eventually, you find yourself wondering which you should fear most – a
cold blooded killer on the loose or the seeming unlimited corruption of our
judicial system.
Ironically,
my own introduction to the West Memphis 3 case happened in the most unlikely of
places, a law enforcement agency. In the
spring of 1997, the police department for which I was working at the time
screened the first Paradise Lost film
to their current class of cadets. The
lawyer who showed the film used it as a teaching tool on how NOT to run an
investigation. After one viewing, the
entire academy class seriously doubted the involvement of the suspects, instead
wanting to know why no one ever looked at any of the victim’s family members
before focusing on Echols, Misskelley, and Baldwin. Excellent question.
Yet,
in light of all the damning new evidence exposed by Berg’s film, nagging
thoughts still remain. A segment of the
documentary is spent interviewing witnesses from the original trial who are now
recanting their statements. Later, new
“bombshell” witness testimony is presented.
How do we know the new bombshell testimony won’t also be recanted for
whatever reason later on down the road?
We don’t. Granted, Berg pretty
much proves otherwise, but the doubt is still there whether we like it or not.
The film also addresses the issue of reductive
vilification. Echols, Baldwin, and
Misskelley were originally convicted because people mistakenly accused them of
being Satanists. A few years later,
before the introduction of DNA evidence, Paradise
Lost 2 mistakenly accused Mark Byers of being the murderer. Now, everyone’s pointing the finger at Terry
Hobbs. Does he round out the trifecta
portion in this case’s history of reductive vilification? Maybe.
Maybe not. However, proving that
someone is a sonofabitch, doesn’t prove that they’re a murderer. Unfortunately,
with the Alford Plea officially closing the case in the eyes of the law, we’ll
probably never find out.
©
LeftFromHollywood 1/2013
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Running Time:
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2
hours 30 minutes
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Release Date:
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January
25, 2013
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MPAA Rating:
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N/A
(documentary)
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Distributor:
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Sony
Pictures Classics
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