The Trials of Darryl Hunt

I saw this at the IDA Festival, ArcLight, Los Angeles. It's about how racism and also the pressure police and DA's feel to obtain convictions can sometimes trump justice. Here, on shaky evidence, African-American Darryl Hunt goes to prison for 19 ½ years for the rape and murder of a young white woman.

There are many death row and miscarriage of justice stories, and like this one, they all mostly sympathize with the accused. For me, DEAD MAN WALKING is a model of balancing sympathy for the victim and their loved ones with sympathy for the railroaded convict. My group's after-movie conversation explored how exactly the system went wrong – how did the DA justify to himself not giving out the state's files to the defense (this was uncovered by a journalist years later, after numerous appeals had been denied)? After the initial conviction by an all-white jury divided the community along racial lines, why did the judge in the second trial decide to try the case again in an all-white area? We weren't discounting racism or sloppy police work or a judge or DA motivated by political expedience, but we all felt people rarely act with purely malicious intent, life tends to be much less simple. We each resisted when the film would show the DA or his witnesses in a bad light, encouraging us to mutter "those racist bastards" or "he's definitely innocent" under our breath. The film spends a lot more time with Darryl and his supporters (all of whom seem moral and sympathetic) than with the victim's family, so one's natural inclination becomes to WANT Darryl to be innocent (i.e. the filmmakers know the outcome and are leading us there). But since we don't know how it would turn out, we feel a little nudged, and personally, when nudged, I tend to stand my ground or even push back. In spite of the shaky police and DA work, just as the filmmakers didn't know for sure over those ten years, as I watched I always kept alive the possibility Darryl was not completely innocent. Despite what an odd and not particularly accessible character the victim's mother was, I never forgot what it must have been like to be her (or worse yet, the victim), nor the incredibly tough job of a DA and police department to make their community feel that they can not only catch but convict the criminals who harm their citizens. I was glad the film included the mother's last speech in the court, where she looks Darryl and the judge in the eye and expresses her total conviction that no matter what the DNA evidence says or the court does, she's certain Darryl raped and killed her daughter. It's a brutal, harrowing moment no fictional feature can hope to match. Darryl's response and the very ending of the film are powerful, too, and while you can probably guess what happens, you can't guess exactly, and I won't spoil it.

The film struck me in a broader, deeper sense, too. Daryl and his wife and everyone involved in contesting the verdict over nineteen years, including the filmmakers, beautifully illustrated how when people endure hardship and injustice, events can and often do align in profound, amazing ways, too. Living proof of MLK's adage that unearned suffering can be redemptive for the soul. (Spoiler alert: if you're worried, skip the rest of this paragraph) A young white legal team loses the case but decides to make it the focus of their professional lives. A former Black Panther decides to organize the community in protest and begins a defense fund which sustains the nearly twenty year effort. After ten years in jail, Darryl gets a brief furlough and on his first day of freedom, meets the woman who becomes his wife and his rock through the hard times to come. Darryl is partially exonerated by a DNA test and offered his freedom if he'll plea bargain down to a lesser crime but decides to go back to jail rather than admit any guilt. Fifteen years and many unsuccessful appeals later, out of the blue, a local reporter decides to do an 8-part front-page series on the case, which turns up new leads. Two young filmmakers are on hand to capture these events as they happen, live, and stick it out ten years wondering whether the convict they're hoping is innocent actually is.

It was also powerful to see the people who the documentary is about and the filmmakers together at the Q&A after the screening, seeing what they are doing with their lives now. What for Darryl (and his family and supporters) was a 20-year tragedy has blossomed into a better, more purposeful, fulfilling life than he'd have probably ever known, and the same is true of all who helped see this through. The story is a testament to Darryl and his supporters' courage, determination and faith. The whole incredible sequence of events encouraged in me a knowledge so oft-forgot (or trivialized) it cannot be overstated, in the goodness of life and our fellow human beings. After an emotional Q&A, rather than ask a question, the last audience member, an older woman, offered her gratitude to all of the participants and filmmakers for who they were and what they were doing with their lives. It was simple and moving. She spoke for me and I think everyone. That the film evoked such generosity of spirit perfectly illustrated what we'd already received from it.

The film-making is excellent, too. Great music, on purpose, clear, dramatic and human. One of the best documentaries of this type I've seen, seriously. I can't imagine what Darryl went through, nor what his friends and family and the filmmakers went through as this all played out, disappointment after hopeless disappointment. And let's never forget the victims and the wreckage left behind, either. Disturbing, yet inspiring, check it out.

At the North Carolina Public Defender's conference, I had the pleasure of watching this film and meeting Mr. Hunt and his attorneys in person. The film is a well articulated synopsis of the various legal and personal challenges faced by Mr. Hunt during his 19 and a half years in a North Carolina prison for a rape and murder which he never committed.

As a film watcher, I really enjoyed the linearity and breadth of the narrative as well as the compelling players involved. The movie is able to explore all of the complexities of the legal procedures without getting bogged down or tedious. The filmmakers followed the case for well over a decade, and at many times in the movie the audience sees events as they unfold in real time. Every lost appeal, every new piece of evidence, and key hearings are well documented and the immediacy of the emotions involved really hits home. Mr. Hunt's case attracted dedicated attorneys and colorful and interesting supporters like Larry Little, who invested their heart and soul into his struggles. The movie refuses to over-sentimentalize Mr. Hunt, instead focusing more upon the systematic forces at work in his case. In fact, no over-sentimentalizing has to be done in this movie. Very few people would have accepted their situation with as much grace or courage as Mr. Hunt did and it shows from the few parts of contemporaneous and recorded dialogue we hear from him.

As a lawyer, it's a case like this that makes me realize why I sit at the defendant's table. It's idealistic to think that everybody has rights, that at any time a vindictive prosecutor backed by unsympathetic individuals can rob someone of their freedom even in the United States. But it's those very ideals, that conception of rights, that makes criminal defendants worthy of our care and protection.

In 1984, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, young white newspaper editor Deborah Sykes is brutally raped and murdered. A man with a history of violence and crime, claiming to be somebody else, phones the police to report that he has seen a young woman killed. A name given during the phone call leads the police to question young black male Darryl Hunt and his friend, and later take them in for further questioning. With a media s**t-storm generated by the slaying of a white woman in a black neighbourhood in a Southern state, what transpired next was one of the most shockingly vindictive miscarriages of justice in recent American history.

Documentaries surrounding wrongful imprisonments and the many failings of the American judicial system are extremely common, but The Trial of Darryl Hunt is particularly infuriating due to the involvement of Hunt himself; a humble, intelligent man who maintains his innocence and dignity throughout his many trials without a hint of hatefulness towards his accusers. He spent 19 years in prison for his imagined crime, his release only being granted after the exhaustive efforts of his legal team and dedicated community following. Ten years into his term, DNA evidence is presented that clears Hunt, but the judge rules that this only proves he didn't do the deed, not that he wasn't present.

The film never tries to be anything other than informative, and directors Ricki Stern and Anne Sundberg detail every movement in the case rather than getting over-stuffed with style. It's often an incredibly frustrating watch, made slightly more bearable by the sight of Hunt,older and heavier, being granted his freedom in the opening moments. It shows us a city divided by skin colour, where tension is still high in a country that believes it has moved on from its dark history, and where a black man can be proved guilty by an all-white jury for a crime he didn't do, the only evidence being broken testimony from a known liar, an ex-convict and a man who looks like he's stepped out of the Jim Crow South.

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(2007) The Trials of Darryl Hunt DOCUMENTARY

Centered on an actual case when an innocent civilian was locked up and prosecuted just because DNA wasn't used to clear him is the focus here and is done by racial profiling instead, just because he's an African American who appear to look like a criminal but is not one in real life! Documentary displays the travesty in some US states which is not unusual, but that Darryl Hunt represents every other person who is falsely convicted just because he "appear" to look like someone who'd commit such a heinous act when the real culprit is still walking on the streets can be explained in 60 minutes than to be shown as an almost 2 hour documentary! People who want to prosecute people without the use of DNA should see this!

Documentary about Darryl Hunt--a black man in the south who is wrongly accused of raping and murdering a white woman. Film moves slowly but it really has to. It shows, step by step, that Hunt was a victim of racism and ended up spending NINETEEN YEARS in jail for a crime he did not commit.

Very difficult to watch--I broke down crying three times during this one. The film isn't one sided either--they interview people who were for AND against Hunt and their reasoning. It became very clear that he was railroaded into jail and the police did everything in their power to keep him there--including destroying evidence that would have cleared him.

Shattering and thoroughly fascinating. A 10 all the way.