Beyond Making A Murderer: 18 more true-life injustices brought to light in pop culture
By Joshua Alston, A.A. Dowd, Marah Eakin, Leonardo Adrian Garcia, William Hughes, Kevin Johnson, Alex McCown, Josh Modell, Andrew Morgan, Dennis Perkins, Drew Toal, Mike Vago, and Annie Zaleski
Jan 11, 2016 12:00 AM
Netflix’s runaway hit documentary series Making A Murderer is currently raising the ire (and pulses) of viewers across the country, but it’s far from alone in the ranks of real-life injustices that have been documented in hopes of raising awareness among the general public. Here are some other infuriating—and compelling—examples of films, podcasts, books, and other media that present cases to stoke audiences’ sense of outrage.
Here is the full list, I just posted some that sounded interesting and some I had watched.
http://www.avclub.com/article/beyond-making-murderer-18-true-life-injustices-wil-230471
9. Kids For Cash (2013)
Disgraced Pennsylvania juvenile court judge Mark Ciavarella absolutely hates when the phrase “kids for cash” is tossed around in reference to the scandal that ended his reign, and argues the term stuck because it’s a catchy media soundbite, not because it describes his actions. Ciavarella’s right on the former point—“kids for cash” does sound like the macabre equivalent of a payday loan in a gothic fairy tale. But it’s a perfectly apt summation of a racket he carried off with his colleague, ex-judge Michael Conahan, to accept $2.6 million in cash bribes in exchange for sending wayward youth off to a for-profit detention facility. Robert May’s documentary Kids For Cash meticulously presents the damning evidence that got Ciavarella sentenced to 28 years in prison, while a more cooperative Conahan was sentenced to 17.5 years. The prison time is cold and weak comfort, considering the men sentenced hundreds of kids to unconscionable sentences for such offenses as mocking a vice principal on Myspace and trespassing in an unoccupied building. Years after their releases, the young adults talk about their enduring emotional and psychological scars. In one case, a young man’s heartbroken mother has to speak for him, as her once happy-go-lucky son shot himself in the chest after completing a sentence handed down by Ciavarella. Meanwhile, Ciavarella remains fixated on the semantics and still refuses to admit his guilt, probably because he’s been lucky enough to stand before judges who have the basic human decency he lacks. [Joshua Alston]
13. “Why The NFL Decided To Start Paying Taxes,” The Atlantic (2015)
From the sport’s inception, football has taught players and fans alike that true power comes from hard work, determination, planning, and teamwork. But the NFL also broadcasts a different message every fall: real power is being rich enough to decide for yourself whether or not to do things like pay taxes. Since the ’60s, the league, which now rakes in $10 billion annually, has been classified as a tax-exempt nonprofit thanks to some creative lobbying. An article in The Atlantic laid bare why its decision last year to actually start paying up to Uncle Sam is a PR move that’s a drop in the bucket compared to the league’s massive revenues, not to mention the unending torrent of taxpayer money. The NFL’s 32 teams receive roughly $1 billion a year between them in stadium construction and tax breaks, which means even the non-fans among us are subsidizing every game. Even as football remains America’s most popular sport, it becomes harder with each passing season to ignore what the league can get away with simply because it has the money and influence to. [Mike Vago]
17. Dear Zachary: A Letter To A Son About His Father (2008)
It’s difficult to watch Dear Zachary: A Letter To A Son About His Father. This soul-crushing documentary begins with the murder of Andrew Bagby, an American medical student, at the hands of his troubled ex-girlfriend, Shirley Turner, who flees to Canada to avoid arrest. While there, awaiting extradition, she announces she’s pregnant with Bagby’s child. Bagby’s parents, David and Kate Bagby, immediately move to Canada with the expressed purpose of being awarded custody of the baby boy, named Zachary. Ostensibly, the film is Bagby’s friend (and filmmaker) Kurt Kuenne’s attempt to document the life of a father for the child who will never know him. However, as the film progresses the My Life-style time capsule gives way to a powerful call to action regarding the molasses-like pace of Canada’s judicial system, the shameful state of its bail policies, and spotlights the woefully inept judges who allow a woman with a history of stalking (and several restraining orders to her name), repeated suicide attempts, and pre-meditated murder to roam the streets a free woman. All which force the saintly elder Bagbys to spend time with their son’s murderer in order to be involved in their grandchild’s life. The entire ordeal is maddening, leaving viewers feeling like withered husks and/or vats of rage. It bears repeating: It’s difficult to watch Dear Zachary: A Letter To A Son About His Father. [Leonardo Adrian Garcia]
18. The Newburgh Sting (2014) “I believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that there would have been no crime here except the government instigated it, planned it, and brought it to fruition.” That’s a quote from U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon, who presided over the case explored in The Newburgh Sting, a documentary about four men who were ensnared in the FBI’s misguided efforts to burnish its reputation for proactive counterterrorism. Judge McMahon still handed down 25-year sentences to the four men, the mandatory sentencing minimum for their alleged plan to set off bombs at Jewish community centers and fire rockets at military planes. But by the end of Kate Davis and David Heilbroner’s film, it’s obvious why the judge was so vocal in her opposition to the case, even as the law limited her options. The Newburgh Four, as they became known, were just four impoverished men living in upstate New York, and hadn’t even met each other until a Pakistani FBI informant dangled a quarter-million dollars to entice them into committing terrorist acts. They lacked the ideology, the means, and the expertise, but the FBI provided all three, and all the feds ever really proved is the means to which desperately poor people will go to get a life-changing payday. But it was still a win for the FBI, which got to crow about its disruption of a homegrown terror cell just a stone’s throw from Ground Zero. [Joshua Alston]