The Exonerated...

I watched the movie, "The Exonerated" for a second time tonight, and I then began to wonder if the movie was as promised real and accurate stories of the six people who were on death row then exonerated. The story of Sonia "Sunny" Jacobs was especially difficult to watch given her boyfriend and the father of her child was not exonerated in time, he was wrongly executed. Which demonstrates that innocent people have died via the death penalty if this is really accurate. The information on Jacobs appears to be close to accurate in the movie though the movie gives the impression she was cleared of all charges and released and in reality she was given a plea deal so that the State of Florida did not have to admit any wrong doing. The horrible way that it was described that Jesse Tafero died I had hoped was an exaggeration, it wasn't.

I hoped to discover if Robert Earl Hayes ever got his license back to race horses, but that's not out there anywhere.

Gary Gauger suffered more than the movie shared I realized when I read his statement. What was taken from him will never be restored. The movie did not mention that David Keaton was also sentenced with an unrelated robbery, the movie gave the impression that Keaton had never been in trouble before, which in reading this article from 1999 we discover is what kept him in jail for an additional six years after he was exonerated from the death penalty case.

Kerry Max Cook had the most information not included in the movie, it was not stated that he had two retrials, one ended in a hung jury and what would have been his third trial also ended with a verdict of guilty. This article from before he was released presents those facts not covered. It should be pointed out though that when the verdict was reversed it was made clear that their was clear failure on the part of the Texas judicial system. The question of when it was stated by the prosecution that Kerry was a homosexual is also raised, the movie makes it appear this happened in the first trial and that before Kerry even went to prison he was "marked" as a homosexual yet it appears that did not happen in until 1994 which would have been 14 years after the first conviction, the part of the movie where the prosecutor is stating this gives the impression that this was the first trial but it appears that was done in 1994. It does appear the claims made by Kerry that he was raped in prison is true.

Delbert Tibbs according to this was one of the luckier ones since he was released after being in prison for two years. The movie makes it appear as if he was held much longer than that when the actor portraying him talks about how he felt when he was released and how hard it was for him to adjust to being "human" again. Tibbs own website gives the impression that he was not released until 1982, which in looking for a second source to determine what was really true, he was released in 1977 which means he was in prison a little over two years and the decision was made in 1982 to not retry him and to drop the charges.

Needless to say I'm a bit disappointed in the movie being promised as "directly from the files and letters" related to these cases since some of the information they selectively left out did give the viewer a false impression. It appears the only stories in the movie as close to accurate as possible was Gary Gauger and Robert Earl Hayes.