Can a documentary save a man from execution
May 27, 2005
Arkansas
Until you are dead
Can a documentary save a man from execution? Damien Wayne Echols,
convicted for a gruesome triple murder in 1993, hopes so. Duncan Campbell
reports on the long campaign behind Paradise Lost
The Guardian
It is, almost, the classic courthouse drama scene. The judge addresses the
young man standing before him and tells him that officials will shortly
"cause to be administered a continuous intravenous injection of a lethal
quantity of an ultra-short-acting barbiturate in combination with a
chemical paralytic agent into your body until you are dead". It may not
quite pack the emotional punch of "and you will be hanged by the neck
until you are dead and may God have mercy on your soul" but the end result
is the same.
In the documentary film Paradise Lost, both parts of which will be shown
in British cinemas next week, Judge David Burnett delivers the words to
Damien Wayne Echols, one of three young men convicted of the horrific
killing and butchering of three eight-year-old boys in West Memphis,
Arkansas in 1993. Recalling his judgment on Echols - the other two
defendants, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Miskelly Jr, were sentenced to life
imprisonment - Judge Burnett says that it was never easy delivering a
death sentence, and perhaps we would be able to tell that from the catch
in his voice as he pronounced sentence. Indeed we can - because the trial
was filmed and that footage, along with the remarkable access the
film-makers obtained from the defendants and their families and from the
step-father of one of the victims, is at the heart of this disturbing and
riveting documentary. The catch in the judge's voice is unmistakable. Did
he have more than the obvious reasons to pause in his judgment?
Echols, then 18, and his two co-defendants, Baldwin, 16, and Miskelly, 17,
were arrested a month after the murders, not least because, with their
dark clothes and their love of heavy metal music and Stephen King books,
they were seen as potentially part of a satanic cult. Echols had a not
untypically teenage interest in the Wicca religion which, in this
God-fearing part of the American south, was seen as even more damning. The
mutilations of the boys' bodies led detectives to believe that some cult
must be involved and the trio were the likely suspects.
After 12 hours of questioning, Miskelly, who had an IQ of 72 and is
clearly not fully aware of what is happening around him, made a
confession, implicating the other two. The confession is a rambling one
and includes some details that turn out to be wrong, such as the time the
crime happened. None the less, he is tried separately and convicted, but
declines to give evidence against the others. At their trial in 1994,
"experts" on the occult explain to the jury the tell-tale signs of such
cults, which include the wearing of black T-shirts. No compelling physical
evidence is presented. They are convicted.
The two film-makers, Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky, shoot not only the
trial and the surrounding courtroom activity but keep their hand-held
cameras running in the patch of Arkansas where the drama unfolded. If the
style and mood seem similar to The Blair Witch Project, then it may be no
surprise to hear that the pair were brought in to make Book of Shadows:
Blair Witch 2, the follow-up to that low-budget hit. (It may be no more
than a coincidence, but the website developed for Paradise Lost has been
cited as a major influence on the Blair Witch's celebrated pseudo-real
website.)
Very soon, two main characters emerged in Paradise Lost: Damien Echols,
the typical, rebellious, moody smalltown boy who doesn't fit in; and John
Mark Byers, the stepfather of the murdered Christopher Byers. Byers Sr is
a good ol' boy who stands 6ft 8in tall and holds a beer in one hand and a
Bible in the other and who looks forward, as he reminds us on many
occasions, to being able to dance on the graves of these
"devil-worshipping sons of bitches" who killed his little boy.
The original Paradise Lost film was bought by HBO and was aired on
American cable television in 1996 with its full title of The Child Murders
at Robin Hood Hills. It had an immediate impact, and the impression was
that a serious miscarriage of justice had unfolded, as the result of what
one participant described as a "modern day witch trial".
Four years later, Berlinger and Sinofsky returned to the case, and made a
second Paradise Lost (subtitled Revelations). The film-makers were still
able to gain remarkable access to the main protagonists. By 2000, Echols,
an academic-looking young man dressed significantly in white, is on death
row and still anxious to protest his innocence. He has been frequently
raped while inside, we are told. He comes across now as a smart,
thoughtful figure. When asked if he has "found God" while in jail, he
replies: "I didn't know God was lost." He has, however, lost any interest
in Wicca: "I don't want to put a label on myself any more." He just wants
to get out and go to college and not be famous for being that guy on death
row. His two co-defendants, as in the trial, play much smaller parts.
John Mark Byers, meanwhile, is centre stage once more. Since the first
film, his wife, a heroin addict, has died in indeterminate circumstances.
Byers himself is now clearly medicated up to the eyeballs, ready to return
to the scene of the crime and carry out a symbolic burial of Echols,
Baldwin and Miskelly, even setting fire to their "graves" as he puffs on a
cigar and bellows: "You want to eat my baby's testicles? Burn, you son of
a bitch, burn! I stomp on your grave!"
Meanwhile, a West Memphis Three support group, inspired by the first film,
has evolved. They have their own website (wm3.org) which has already had
more than 2m hits. Every misunderstood teenager in a black T-shirt has
clearly signed on. Many supporters obviously suspect that Byers might be
the murderer, and he is well aware that even local people are starting to
suggest just that. He agrees to take a polygraph test, which provides part
of the drama for the film. The confrontations between the Memphis Three
camp, mainly fairly savvy folk, and Byers, a trailer-trash caricature,
punctuate the film as does the music of Metallica, about whom the same
film-makers later made a documentary, Some Kind of Monster, in 2004.
The detective who investigated the murder, Gary Gitchell, now older and
greyer, says that he is certain that he got the right people for the
crime: "I can go to bed at night knowing I did my job and did it well," he
says. The judge is equally convinced. The relatives of the three
defendants travel to Los Angeles to present their case on a talk show, but
their contribution is never aired. We do get to see a bit of Los Angeles,
however, and learn that about half the population there wear black
T-shirts.
Since Paradise Lost, Andrew Jarecki's 2003 documentary Capturing the
Friedmans has enjoyed great critical and commercial success. The Friedmans
told the story of a seemingly normal suburban family whose life was
suddenly turned upside down by the arrest of the father and youngest son
for paedophilia. There are many similarities between Capturing the
Friedmans and Paradise Lost: the breathtaking frankness of some of the
participants, the strong suggestion of a miscarriage of justice, the
hand-held camera style. There is, as with the Friedmans, that slightly
uncomfortable feeling that we may be voyeurs being entertained by people
unaware of just how bizarre and unhinged they may seem.
Both films differ from the more familiar form of British documentaries on
miscarriages of justice pioneered by the now defunct Rough Justice on the
BBC and Trial and Error on Channel 4. There the style was to present an
unequivocal case for someone's innocence. With the Friedmans and, to a
lesser extent, Paradise Lost, the audience is very much left to make up
their own minds. What would we do if we were on the jury? Who do we
believe? How much of our attitude is framed by our prejudices, whether
towards young men with bad haircuts and attitude problems, or raging
rednecks who like taking their dentures out for the camera?
Paradise Lost 2 was completed in 2000, and at the time there was a feeling
that Damien Echols might finally be either taking the long walk towards
that lethal combination of drugs that the judge prescribed or freedom.
Five years on, he is still on death row. I am left wanting to see the
third instalment.
&183; Paradise Lost 1 and 2 screen at the Curzon Soho, London W1, on June
3, then tour. They will be released on DVD on June 20 (Warp, £14.99)
Source - The Guardian (UK)
http://film.guardian.co.uk/features/featurepages/0,4120,1493157,00.html 
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