"It's an outrage on the soul, that's what is is! It is written, Thou shalt not kill. Does that mean that because he has killed we must kill him? No, that's wrong." - Dostoyevsky
Click on linked titles for more information. Please contact us at 1-800-567-8237 if you would like to host a screening.
FILMS
Juan Melendez - 6446
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This documentary tells the story of Juan Melendez, who in 1984 was sent to Florida's death row
for the murder of Delbert Baker even though no physical evidence linked
him to the crime. In 2002, he was released with all charges vacated
after it was found that prosecutors had withheld critical evidence in
the case. He became the 99th person exonerated in the United States
since 1976, and the 20th from Florida. Contact VADP at 1-800-567-8237 for more information. |
Love Lived on Death Row
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Love Lived on Death Row tells
the story of the four Syriani siblings whose father was sentenced to die
for the murder of their mother in 1990 and Meg Eggleston, who became their
father's friend and spiritual advisor through letters to him in prison.
Orphaned and estranged, the Syriani children lived with hate, anger and
confusion as the man they could only refer to as 'Him Him' lived on North
Carolina's death row. But in 2004 they collectively decided to visit him
in prison, seeking answers so they could move on with their adult lives.
What transpired that day was a miracle of forgiveness followed by a journey
of healing, restoring family memories and then a battle for his clemency.
Love Lived on Death Row's portrait of a family torn apart by tragedy
and reunited by another impending tragedy is a powerful examination of not
only the healing process, but also of the role capital punishment plays
in serving justice. 2007. 84 min. |
At the Death House Door
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Documentary about Carroll Pickett, Chaplain for the Texas
Department of Corrections from 1982-1995 who counseled 95 inmates
executed by lethal injection. It chronicles his experience counseling
Carlos De Luna - widely believed to have been innocent - and tracks his
transformation from supporter to opponent of the death penalty.2008. 95 min.
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The Trials of Daryl Hunt
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Documentary tells the story of a wrongfully
convicted man who spent twenty years in prison in North Carolina for a
crime he did not commit. 2006. 106 min.
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The Thin Blue Line
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Legendary documentarian Errol Morris uses reenactments,
photo montoges, film clips, and interviews to reconstruct and investigate the 1976 murder of a Dallas policeman and the
subsequent arrest and sentencing to death of a man who claims to be
innocent. 1988. 101 min.
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Dead Man Walking
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Although not the story of an innocent man, this film is often cited by
people as the film that changed their mind on the death penalty. Sister
Helen Prejean's story mourns a nation determined to set an example of
vengeance rather than compassion. 1995.
122 min.
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Books:
Nonfiction
The Innocent Man - John Grisham
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Amazon.com Review
John Grisham tackles nonfiction for the first time with The Innocent Man, a true tale about murder and injustice in a small town (that reads like one of his own bestselling novels). The Innocent Man
chronicles the story of Ron Williamson, how he was arrested and charged
with a crime he did not commit, how his case was (mis)handled and how
an innocent man was sent to death row. Grisham's first work of
nonfiction is shocking, disturbing, and enthralling--a must read for
fiction and nonfiction fans. --Daphne Durham |
Anatomy of an Execution: The Life and Death of Douglas Christopher Thomas - Todd C. Peppers and Laura Trevvett Anderson
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It is an undisputed fact that Chris Thomas was guilty of participating
in a brutal double homicide. He was convicted of killing his
girlfriend's parents in November of 1990, was sentenced to death in
November of 1991, and was executed by the Commonwealth of Virginia in
January of 2000. Chris Thomas was one of the last juvenile offenders to
be put to death before the Supreme Court ruled that the execution of
juveniles constituted cruel and unusual punishment. In Anatomy of an
Execution, Todd C. Peppers and Laura Trevvett Anderson tell the entire
story, shedding light on issues surrounding the death penalty--such as
the quality of court appointed counsel, the execution of juveniles
(from both a constitutional law and public policy perspective),
conditions of confinement on death row, and the role of spiritual
advisors in the condemned's last days. While providing insight into the
legal workings of the modern death penalty system, the book also offers
a rare glimpse of a young, condemned man's life before and after the
crime: a childhood ravaged by loss and neglect, a toxic first love, the
brutal murders, trial and sentencing, and, ultimately, a chance at
redemption. This is not an effort to excuse a crime but an assertion
that even a murderer's life is worth more than its worst act.
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An Expendable Man: The Near Execution of Earl Washington, Jr. - Margaret Edds
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Virginia has executed over 100 people since 1982 and exonerated
only one. This book tells the story of how Washington, after 17 years
on death row and coming withing nine days of execution, was freed by
the Commonwealth of Virginia for a crime he had not committed. Essential reading.
"Earl Washington's story reveals the dark side of a system that is
not known for admitting its mistakes. We have a lot to learn from this
case, which highlights many of the problems we see over and over again
in cases of wrongful conviction."
—Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), chief sponsor of The Innocence Protection Act
"Margaret Edds' book on Earl Washington shows the heavy handedness with
which our society deals with those it deems expendable. It demonstrates
how the politics of the death penalty skews our moral compass and how a
small group of volunteers toiled for many years to set it straight for
one expendable man. Whatever your position on the death penalty, if you
want to know how it actually works, read this book."
—Sister Helen Prejean
Contact VADP at 1-800-567-8232 for a signed copy. Suggested $15 donation.
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A Saint on Death Row: The Story of Dominique Green - Thomas Cahill
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“Dominique Green was a wonderful man whose life demonstrated the power
of God to heal and transfigure even the most unlikely people and
places. Who could have expected that Texas Death Row would be made into
an avenue of divine grace?—which is exactly what happened through
Dominique’s instrumentation. Though this is a book that ends in death,
it does not end in despair. Read it and discover how even the obscenity
of capital punishment can be transformed into an occasion of light and
peace.”
—Desmond Tutu, Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town, South Africa |
Dead Run: The Untold Story of Dennis Stockton and America's Only Mass Escape from Death Row - Joe Jackson and William F. Burke, Jr.
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The fascinating story of a man who sat on Virginia's death row for a
murder involving friendship and drug running on the border of VA and NC.
Dennis Stockton, a pitcher scouted by the Yankees as a boy, found
himself convicted on testimony, later recanted, from a highly dubious
source and while on the row saw and recorded everything there was to
see. Most improbably, the only successful mass escape from a death row in the country, and from a new state-of-the art facility, was orgainized around him
and documented by him in his meticulous journal, which provides much of the material for this book. The dramatic events surrounding the break out and the troubled but fascinating personalities of his row-mates are
described with great insight. A sad and compelling human story.
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Ultimate Punishment: A Lawyer's Reflections on Dealing with the Death Penalty - Scott Turow
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As the titile suggests, the author recounts his experiences in the court room and on the Illinois commission to study the death penalty. A short but very thorough look at capital punishment through the eyes of an expert - one who remained conflicted over the issue for much of his career. Turow convices us by sharing the same wisdom that convinced him that capital punishement is too flawed to be fair and constitutional. One is reminded of CS Lewis' "Mere Christianity" as an example of a storyteller giving his devotees a brief notion of his unfictionalized pespectives. Of course, Lewis had not turned the corner on the death penalty in his time, but one must assume that, should he lived longer, he surely would have.
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Fiction
The Idiot - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
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"Just think: take, for instance, torture: you get suffering, wounds, bodily agony, all of which distracts the mind from mental suffering, for up to the very moment of your death you are only tormented by your wounds. Yet the chief and the worst pain is perhaps not inflicted by wounds, but by your certain knowledge that in an hour, in ten minutes, in half a minute, now, this moment your soul will fly out of your body, and that you will be a human being no longer, and that that's certain - the main thing is that it is certain. Just when you lay your head under the knife and you hear the swish of the knife as it slides down over your head - it is just that fraction of a second that is the most awful of all. Do you realize that it is not only my imagination, but that many people have said the same? I am so convinced of it that I will tell you frankly what I think. To kill for murder is an immeasurably greater evil than the crime itself... Why this cruel, hideous, unneccessary, and useless mockery? Possibly there are men who have sentences of death read out to them and have been given time to go through this torture, and have then been told, You can go now, you've been reprieved. Such men could perhaps tell us. It was of agony like this and of such horror that Christ spoke. No, you can't treat a man like that!"
- Prince Myshkin, expressing his relief that Russia doesn't have the death penalty as did France
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