Crime of Innocence

Well, in my point of view, I figured that the real-life judge that was the basis of the movie, is dead. The young lady who was harmed, is now a lawyer in a big city, somewhere in the western part of the USA! She did get married and have a family!

TV-movie about a rule-abiding good girl from the suburbs who gets caught up in a bit of teenage excitement and goes joy-riding with a friend; unfortunately, the kids are arrested and the strict judge throws the book at them, culminating in a rape behind bars. Exceptionally well-acted teens-in-trouble film alternates between exploitation melodrama and cautionary fable (kids, this can happen to you!). Luckily, interest is held by a top cast including Andy Griffith (positively frothing at the mouth as the old judge), Ralph Waite (excellent as the young girl's dad, who bows to legal pressure and then fights his conscience over it), and Shawnee Smith in the lead. As a teenage actress, Smith was focused and very forthright, able to rise above the soapy dross of the script by never getting carried away with her character's anger, sadness, or feelings of betrayal. She gives just what is needed, and the movie is absorbing and interesting as a result.

In answer to a previous person's email, the judge in the story is indeed passed away. He was my father. He passed on the day of the OJ verdict (although that was not the cause). By the way, please realize that this movie was produced by liberal movie makers who intended to paint the judge in the story as the villain. Anyone familiar with the real story felt my father was correct in the way he treated juveniles who came before his court, and he was re-elected (more precisely, elected after being appointed) in a landslide.

The true villain in the story was the jailer, someone who was a childhood friend of mine, and who tried to take revenge on me because of how determined my father was to get him for raping that girl. The parents should have sued the sheriff in my opinion, since he was the one who hired the jailer and didn't protect her.

I never found out for sure, but Andy Griffith must have met my father before doing this movie, because he reminded me of him in many ways.