BuzzFlash Reviews

BUZZFLASH REVIEWS

"At the Sundance Film Festival, viewers leaped to their feet, many in tears, at the end of the first screening."

--Sharon Waxman, NEW YORK TIMES

From an Online Review (as posted):

"to put it simply, this film is a STUNNING jaw-dropper. it is by far one of the best films i have seen in decades, not because of great film-making techniques, but simply because of its incredibly powerful content. highly worth your time to see the how and why our (U.S.) justice system so consistently malfunctions and to see the wide swath of lives it ravages in the process.

but this is a truly hopeful film, as it shows many exonerees who, after being freed, have risen above the horrors of being imprisoned for 10, 20 years for committing no crime at all; and it shows many of those in the innocence project who make enormous sacrifices of time, effort, and money to save innocent people from the hell of unjust imprisonment and death"

From another New York Times Review by Stephen Holden:

"Calm, deliberate and devastating, Jessica Sanders's documentary "After Innocence" confirms many of the worst fears about weaknesses in the American criminal-justice system. In examining the cases of seven men wrongly convicted of murder and rape and exonerated years later by DNA evidence, the film reinforces the queasy feelings you have while following high-profile criminal trials.

The pursuit of justice in those cases often seems secondary to the drama of competing lawyers and to the ferocious desire of prosecutors to win at costs and protect their reputations. Like many of us, judges, lawyers and prosecutors may often out of their way to avoid admitting mistakes."

Winner of the Sundance Film Festival Special Jury Prize in 2005

"A gripping, emotionally charged film that follows wrongfully convicted men freed by DNA evidence after decades in prison as they struggle to transition back into society."

We have been offering a BuzzFlash book premium entitled: "Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts."

One of the chapters discusses how prosecutors, in general, will never admit a mistake.

So, in seeing "After Innocence," in which "convicted felons" are exonerated by DNA testing -- in short by scientific proof -- it is hard to understand or sympathize with lawyers for "the state" who think that an innocent man or woman should stay in prison, because a prosecutor can never be wrong, even if innocence is staring them in the face.

The gripping "After Innocence" documentary details lives of wrongfully convicted Americans who lived to be released from prison. But what about the inevitable number of individuals who have been executed who did not live to be cleared of guilt. It may not be a large number, but you can bet your bottom dollar that in his record setting execution spree, George W. Bush put more than one innocent person to death.

Ironically, it was a Republican Governor from Illinois -- who now stands convicted of a non-violent felony -- who finally took the bold step of halting executions in the Land of Lincoln, based on the uncertain process in which murder convictions were obtained in that state -- and elsewhere in the United States.

"After Innocence" is about convicts who everyone but their families forgot about, except for a handful of national legal advocates who have taken on the death penalty and promoted the use of DNA in exonerating the wrongfully imprisoned and sentenced to death.

"The film, written by Ms. Sanders and Marc Simon, was made in collaboration with the Innocence Project, a nonprofit legal clinic founded in 1992 by the lawyers Barry C. Sheck and Peter J. Neufeld at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in Manhattan. The clinic handles only cases in which post-con- viction DNA testing can yield conclusive proof of innocence. Its work has helped exonerate more than 160 people, and it estimates that DNA testing could free thousands more."

BUZZFLASH REVIEWS