Post by pebbles on Mar 12, 2007 19:10:29 GMT -5
March 9, 2007
The documentary film Race To Execution by Rachel Lyon will air nationally on the Emmy Award-winning PBS series Independent Lens on Tuesday, March 27, 2007 at 10 p.m. Race to Execution offers a compelling and original investigation of America's death penalty, probing how race discrimination infects the capital punishment system. The film reveals the potential biases in the racial portrayal of victims and perpetrators in the media, particularly where potential jurors internalize these stereotypes and bring them into the courtroom.
Race to Execution enlarges the conversation of capital punishment by focusing attention on race of jury as well as race of victim. Filmed on the heels of key 2005 Supreme Court decisions overturning death sentences in Texas and California due to racial discrimination in jury selection, the movie provides a timely analysis of the subtle, yet persistent ways our culture casually overlooks matters of race in criminal justice.
The documentary also traces the fates of two Death Row inmates - Robert Tarver in Russell County, Alabama, and Madison Hobley in Chicago, Illinois. Their compelling personal stories are enriched through accounts offered by the attorneys who defended them, and by prosecutors, criminal justice scholars, and experts in the fields of law and the media who followed their cases. The film includes major segments on the impact of media, along with how race bias in jury selection influences who lives and who dies at the hands of the state. (PBS, Independent Lens, March 8, 2007).
Find out more about the film.
Source: Death Penalty Information Center
