Spring 1997, Volume XII, Number 2 The Death Penalty Death Penalty Video Reviews Dead Man Walking [1995, 122 minutes] A Film by Tim Robbins Distributed by Gramercy Pictures Available at local video stores and libraries Reviewed by Myles Clowers Occasionally a Hollywood production will come along that has some intellectual merit as well as entertainment value. Such is the case with the film, Dead Man Walking, released in 1995 by Gramercy Pictures. Nominated for four Academy Awards, including best actress for which Susan Sarandon won the Oscar, this film is based upon the book of the same name. The book was written by Sister Helen Prejean, a spiritual advisor to several death row inmates in the Louisiana State penitentiary at Angola. The movie is a study of the death penalty, but from a very unusual perspective. Two of the death row inmates that Sister Prejean counseled were combined into one character, Matthew Poncelet, portrayed by Sean Penn. The film tells the story from the Sister's first encounter with Poncelet until his eventual execution. Along the way the viewer sees the legal steps that he and his attorney take in order to delay or commute the death sentence, all of which fail. There are several emotional scenes in which the prisoner finally realizes that he is going to die and then makes peace with God and the families of his two victims. It is the focus on the victim's families that makes this film so intriguing. Sister Prejean meets the family members and, in several very powerful scenes, has two very different experiences. In the case of the family of the murdered young man, the father tries to deal with his loss by joining a therapy group. However, the mother is unable to cope with her son's death and eventually the couple divorce, a common occurrence in such situations. Sister Prejean is welcomed by the father and forms a positive relationship with him. Sister Prejean's relationship with the other family is the exact opposite. They invite Prejean into their home, where they relate the life and times of their daughter's life. They do so in the belief that Sister Prejean has changed her view on the death penalty and when they find out that she has not changed her mind, there is a very intense and emotional scene in which they express their disbelief and outrage that the Sister could still be opposed to the death penalty. The film also has several sequences that deal with Poncelet's (the prisoner's) family members. In a sense, they, too, are victims of the crime; it is their son and brother who is being executed. There is one gripping scene toward the end of the film, where the family gives Poncelet the family Bible. As he opens it, he sees the family tree with his name, birth date, and the date of his death recorded. This symbolizes their acceptance of his fate. During the course of the film, Poncelet mentions several times that he is not a victim and that he is tired of people being seen as victims. This is what makes Dead Man Walking a potentially powerful teaching tool. It is a study in victims: the two families of the murdered young people, Poncelet's family, and Poncelet himself. The film is as evenly balanced as possible; it is left to the viewer to determine who the victims are. It is precisely this even-handedness that makes this picture special. Several clips, such as the scenes mentioned above, or the entire film could be used in a college classroom setting very effectively. The PBS series Frontline aired a program, originally shown on April 9, 1996, "Angel on Death Row," about the film. This hour-long program (available for purchase from PBS Films) covers some of the same issues that the film does but in a different way. The police officer who investigated the original crime, the family of one of the victims, and one surviving victim are interviewed along with Sister Prejean. Perhaps the most emotional point of the program occurs when the young woman who was repeatedly raped and brutalized by Robert Lee Wille, one of the two criminals that the film used as a basis for Matthew Poncelet, calls Sister Prejean, and eventually they meet. Frontline has a webpage which has links to some excellent supplementary sources such as interviews with the victim, the investigating sheriff, and the deceased girl's mother. There are links to opposing views on the death penalty by Supreme Court Justices Blackmun and Scalia and two legal scholars, Ernest van den Haag and Jack Greenberg, as well as a chronology of capital punishment. In all, this web site provides an abundance of material for research and classroom use. The film and the PBS program, used in conjunction with one another, would make for an excellent discussion of the death penalty. Clips from both could be used to highlight or stress various points. Supplemented by the Frontline web site, these multi-media materials can provide a very powerful learning experience for an undergraduate student in political science or law. Myles Clowers is Professor of History and Political Science at San Diego City College, San Diego, CA 92101. Not In Our Town [1995, 30 minutes] The California Working Group 5867 Ocean View Drive Oakland, CA 94618 510/547-8484 video@pbs.org $29.95 (purchase) WACO -- The Inside Story [1995, 60 minutes] A Frontline documentary by Michael Kirk and Michael McLeod WGBH Educational Foundation P.O. Box 2284 South Burlington, VT 05407-2284 800/255-9424 http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline $75.95 (purchase) Reviewed by Lief H. Carter The two videos reviewed here deal with societal reactions to officially defined deviance -- right-wing hate crimes in the first case and religious deviance coupled with alleged violations of firearms regulations in the second. I have used both in a variety of classes with consistently excellent results. I'll describe each shortly, but I want to tip my hand regarding their payoffs first. Movies and videos are problematic teaching devices because we habitually experience their contents as very much limited to, and contingent on, the particular event or story. They may teach a particular "factual" story well, but the very rich particularity discourages generalization or extension to other situations. Unless one wants to teach descriptive history alone, we must very deliberately describe and shape the context in which we want our students to learn from videos. These two videos make that task easy. In a leadership course I taught this year, I wanted to emphasize how leadership as we defined it entails sharing responsibility -- coordinating rather than commanding. I showed (as much by accident as by design) videos of effective and ineffective classical music conductors -- successful rehearsals by the conductor Robert Shaw and a dictatorial and ultimately unsuccessful recording session by Leonard Bernstein -- back to back with Not In Our Town. At the end of the course, the leadership students' course evaluations said the most powerful single learning experience in the course was seeing Not In Our Town, not as an example of community practice of our political ideals but as an example of effective individual involvement in and commitment to a project -- because, as Robert Shaw had put it in the earlier video, "Nobody should lead!" In short, I recommend Not In Our Town and Waco because (1) they transcend "reporting the facts," and (2) they can be put to so many different but equally powerful uses in the classroom. Not In Our Town This thirty minute video, narrated by San Francisco's Will Durst, documents the events in Billings, Montana in the early 1990s. The home of a Native American mother and child is defaced with a swastika and hateful statements about Native Americans while they were in the house. Someone throws a brick through the bedroom window of a child of a Jewish physician. White "toughs" walk into a service at an Afro-American church and stand, menacingly, at the back for some minutes and then leave. The "law" does not catch the perpetrators, but the pattern ceases. The pattern ceases because, the video persuades us, different individuals and groups reacted, and they reacted without any strong coordination from any formal or informal political leader. The painters's union sends a crew over to repaint the house for free. Whites start attending services at the Black church to show their support. The newspaperman, a Dane, recalls that the Danish King wore a yellow star publicly to protest the Nazi branding of the Jews at the beginning of World War II. He has his paper print a full-page menorah for people to put in their home and store windows to show support for Jews at Hanukkah. Of course, Not In Our Town succeeds in part through its "warm fuzzy" quality. At a time when hyperpluralism endangers the conviction that membership in that community called "the United States" means anything, we see the words of liberal civic ideals become flesh and live. But I think the video succeeds primarily because its makers have wonderfully captured the understated authenticity of ordinary people reacting to hate crimes and practicing liberal values "easily." A painter says with a touch of surprise that painting the house was a bonding and ennobling experience for everyone -- it felt better than just going back to the hall after work for a few beers. The long-time resident of Billings, the Lutheran who married the Jewish physician, tells how shaken she was when her then-boyfriend told her he had to "confess" to her that he was Jewish. A reformed "skinhead" living in Billings after serving a prison term seems genuinely appalled by his earlier life. (A one hour follow-up program, Not In Our Town II, was broadcast in late December of 1996; it does not succeed in the way the original does). Waco: The Inside Story This superb program documents chronologically the FBI's confrontation with the Branch Davidians after the initial shooting of the "swat-team" officers. It is emphatically not about the Branch Davidians; it is about formal organizations under stress. I have used this in classes on leadership, basic government and politics, and legal process. The video describes an on-site "competition" between the FBI's "Hostage Rescue Team" and the FBI's negotiation team. The former (the "Ninjas") pushes constantly for action in retaliation for the original shootings. The negotiators play for time. Students in all these classes come away with many indelible messages, among which are: (1) training and identification with mission determine a frame or mindset that overwhelms dispassionate analysis of the facts (the "Ninjas" never thought to check the weather report for wind conditions, when they finally "invaded" the compound; the high winds drove out the tear gas so fast that the gas had no effect on the Davidians); (2) accurate communication is as critical to effective action as it is difficult to achieve (the negotiators are within minutes of making a major exchange when the HRT, not knowing of the negotiator's success, begins a deliberately threatening maneuver); (3) under high stress, people grasp at straws of evidence and then act ("someone" told Attorney General Reno, falsely, that children were being sexually abused inside the compound, which unconfirmed report led her to OK the final deadly assault). Like any fine work of art, these videos have multiple meanings. I strongly recommend that you or your library acquire them. Lief H. Carter is Distinguished Professor of American Institutions at The Colorado College, Colorado Springs, CO 80903. Innocence Lost: The Verdict [1992, 232 minutes] A Frontline documentary by Ofra Bikel Distributed by PBS Video 1320 Braddock Place Alexandria, VA 22314-1698 800-344-3337 $99.95 (purchase) Reviewed by Lawrence T. White In April 1992, a North Carolina jury convicted Robert Kelly on 99 counts of sexually abusing children at the Little Rascals Day Care Center in Edenton. The court sentenced Kelly to 12 consecutive life terms -- one for each of the children he allegedly abused. Kelly's wife, two other teachers at the school, and a video store owner also were charged with sexual molestation. At trial the children themselves presented the most damning testimony, even though most of the young witnesses reported abuse only after they were treated by therapists who believed widespread abuse had taken place at the day care center. Ofra Bikel's Innocence Lost: The Verdict is the remarkable story of the Little Rascals case, one of the most unsettling and unsettled sexual abuse cases in the country. The filmmaker had unusual access to the parents of the alleged victims, the defendants and their families, the attorneys, the expert witnesses, and five members of the jury. The result is a spellbinding documentary that follows the case from the first accusation of abuse to the aftermath of the arduous trial. In addition to recreating an emotionally-charged courtroom drama, the film examines the trial's poignant impact on the small, affluent community of Edenton. Given its subject, Innocence Lost is particularly appropriate for courses that examine legal issues related to children and social science, especially psychology. The film raises a large number of questions relevant to such courses. What constitutes sexual abuse of a child? Can a therapist alter a child's memory for a past event? Are children reliable witnesses? Should psychologists be allowed to testify as expert witnesses? How do group dynamics shape a jury's deliberations and verdict? Under what circumstances might an innocent person plead guilty? Is an adversarial system an effective means to determine the truth of what happened? In what ways does law reach out and touch people who are not directly involved in a dispute? Given its length (nearly four hours), instructors may wish to use Innocence Lost either as a "touchstone" at the beginning of a course or as a "case study" near the end of a course. As a touchstone, students and instructor can periodically return to events in the film and use those events to add substance and meaning to the abstract concepts they discuss in class. As a case study, students can scrutinize the Little Rascals case and, by applying a perspective rooted in law, gain a deeper understanding of what happened and why it happened the way it did. This sort of exercise also encourages students to review important issues and concepts, perhaps in preparation for a final examination. There is a Chinese proverb that says, "Two-thirds of what we see is behind our eyes." Ofra Bikel's powerful documentary explores what transpires, legally and otherwise, when people see what they expect to see and hear what they want to hear. Lawrence T. White is Professor of Psychology and Director of the Legal Studies Program at Beloit College, Beloit, WI 53511. Talk to Me: Americans In Conversation [60 minutes] A documentary film by Arcadia Pictures Produced and directed by Andrea Simon Distributed by the Cinema Guild 1697 Broadway, New York, NY 10019 800/723-5522 $295 (purchase); $95 (rental) Reviewed by Brian Doan Talk to Me: Americans in Conversation is a sharply produced and emotionally candid film that seeks, through its structure and content, to come to grips with what it means to be an American at the end of the 20th century. Funded through the National Endowment for the Humanities' "National Conversation on American Pluralism and Identity," it is a sprawling, engaging piece of work that could act as a good starting point for classroom discussion. Talk to Me is quite literally a dialogue, interweaving a diverse set of voices into one rich tapestry. The editing of the film is fluid, as a comment from an interviewee will trigger a leap to another point in American history, giving the viewer both a sense of our nation's interconnectedness and creating a forward momentum that reflects what one participant describes as America's "movement toward perpetual perfection." Visually, the film is a kaleidoscope of shifting images, each presented with a unique spin. Shots of the road, of wide-open landscapes and of the movement across them, are potent metaphors the film returns to again and again. The documentary is not content to present these pictures in a traditional manner, however; it opens to the strains of blues music as we view a 1950s kinescope of an immigrant woman, shifts to the voice of Bob Dylan singing folk music while we examine a painting of Columbus encountering the Native Americans, and then superimposes lines from Star Trek over images of the Old West (bringing whole new meaning to the lines about a "final frontier.") Such traditional touchstones from our national imagination are filtered through popular culture in an attempt to start a fresh dialogue on American society. The comments of those interviewed are thoughtful and candid, bringing to light concerns that are often ignored in such documentaries. Writer Rosemary Bray, novelist Allan Gurganus, historian Gordon Wood, and Harvard Law School Professor Randall Kennedy, among others, talk about America in tones that are both loving and critical. There are fresh discussions on such standard topics as race, cultural assimilation, the open road as a metaphor for America's restless character, and American "individualism." The film is not without its flaws. While a wide cross-section of ethnicities and professions are represented, the film gives short shrift to urban and eastern experiences, preferring to concentrate on rural and western America. While this fits nicely with its theme of American movement and perpetual re-creation, it also means that a substantial chunk of American history and culture is not well-represented. Overall, however, this is an excellent documentary. In its own innovative way, Talk to Me acts as a rich starting point for a discussion about American identity. A shorter version of Talk to Me, entitled Toward a More Perfect Union, is also available. Designed specifically for classroom use, this 22 minute video is divided into four 5 minute segments on specific topics related to identity and community. Accompanied by a 20-page discussion guide, it is available from Transit Media by calling 1-800-343-5540. The cost is $69.95 (plus shipping and handling). Other Death Penalty Videos Films for the Humanities & Sciences has four documentary videos on capital punishment. The newest release is "Judgment at Midnight," a 46-minute video that profiles an inmate waiting to die and a prison preparing to execute him. Narrated by ABC News correspondent Cynthia McFadden, the video films rare scenes in the cellblock and the execution chamber, while at the same time exploring the feelings of the families of an inmate and his victim. Other videos include "Juveniles and the Death Penalty," a 58-minute video with interviews of youths convicted of murder; "The Death Penalty," a 26-minute video that explores how the death penalty is applied by examining the cases of two men who committed similar murders in the same community; and "The Capital Punishment Industry," a 28-minute video that explores this issue through the eyes of inmates, prison chaplains and executioners. The videos are available for purchase ($89-$159) or rental ($75). To inquire or order, telephone Films for the Humanities & Sciences at 800-257-5126 or email custserv@films.com. Spring 1997 Issue Home | The Death Penalty: A Scholarly Forum Arbitrariness and the Death Penalty | Race and the Death Penalty Victims and the Death Penalty | Purposes of the Death Penalty Teaching about the Death Penalty | Conclusion and Participants List Unedited Death Penalty Forum ABA Calls for Moratorium | Policy, Statistics, and Public Opinion Multidisciplinary Teaching about the Death Penalty Links Focus on Law Studies Home | Subscribe to Focus | Questions/Ordering Back Issues