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Suddenly, the documentarians were no longer detached observers, but participants. As a result, there are no faceless entities here - all of the participants have personalities.ĭadetown, an earlier 1996 release, questioned the role of documentary film makers in examining their subjects, and this issue is raised in Paradise Lost when a knife given to Berlinger and Sinofsky by a victim's father is introduced as a piece of evidence. The friends and families of the victims and the defendants cooperated with the film makers, enabling them to get close to both sides. Their cameras were allowed in the courtrooms, behind closed-door strategy sessions, and in the prisons where the accused were being held. Their families exhibited far more distress than they did.īerlinger and Sinofsky have obtained an amazingly in-depth and intimate picture of the situation. Oddly, however, the three weren't fazed by their convictions. Damien, Jessie, and Jason were tried in and convicted by the media.
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Suddenly, news reports were full of allegations of Satanic rituals and occult ceremonies, with intimations of human sacrifice and sexual perversity. Jessie and Jason were guilty by association.
Because Damien was "different" by his own admission - he wore black, listened to Metallica, and had shown interest in the Wicca religion - he made an excellent target. But the town of West Memphis needed scapegoats, people they could demonize. Jessie's confession was, at best, obtained under dubious circumstances. There was almost no physical evidence connecting the three to the crime.
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There's no way that this movie can answer the question of the defendants' guilt or innocence, but one piece of information is clear from Paradise Lost: Jessie Misskelly, Damien Echols, and Jason Baldwin did not receive fair trials.
Berlinger and Sinofsky painstakingly chronicle ten months worth of developments, illustrating how easily justice can be swayed. Paradise Lost follows events surrounding the crime, from the discovery of the bodies (as shown in a graphic police crime scene video) to the verdicts. Damien was sentenced to die by lethal injection Jason was to spend the rest of his life in jail without the possibility of parole.
Likewise, Damien and Jason were found guilty.
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He was tried, convicted, and sentenced to life plus 40 years. Jessie, who has a 72 IQ and was subjected to a grueling 10-hour interrogation, confessed to his involvement in the killings, but later recanted the confession, claiming to have been coerced. The eventual suspects were Jessie Misskelly, age 17 Damien Echols, age 18 and Jason Baldwin, age 16. It took the police a month to make arrests. The community, understandably outraged, cried out for blood. On the night of May 5, 1993, three eight-year old boys, Steven Branch, Christopher Byers, and Michael Moore, were tortured and murdered in Robin Hood Hills, West Memphis, Arkansas. Other documentaries, such as The Thin Blue Line and Brothers Keeper, have followed similar paths, but none with the devastating impact of Paradise Lost.
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Paradise Lost became a trial of the American justice system, and, to a lesser extent, a condemnation of the media's lack of objectivity. What they uncovered during the course of filming radically changed the movie's direction. So, if the system is broken, is it possible to get a fair trial? This is a crucial question, and, if we accept the evidence presented in Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky's Paradise Lost, the sobering answer may be "no", at least in certain high-profile cases.īerlinger and Sinofsky, who made 1992's Brothers Keeper, have stated that they initially approached this project as an examination of America's disaffected youth. At some point, however, our approach to justice in this country became warped.
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Someone once said this about the United States' justice system: "If ten guilty men must go free to prevent one innocent man from falsely going to prison, so be it." This philosophy explains why, at least in theory, every accused criminal is presumed innocent until proven otherwise.
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