The film examines cases of death row inmates who came close to execution only to be exonerated and freed from prison. In an extreme case of miscarriage of justice, one of the wrongly convicted men came within days of electrocution before being exonerated through the work of two Northwestern University students. Another subject of the film spent two years living next to the room that housed the electric chair before being cleared after a post conviction DNA test. The Governor of Illinois explains why he ended executions in his state and there is a special performance at United Nations of Jessica Blank’s Broadway play entitled “The Exonerated”.
Behind The Scenes
The crew witnessed the state of NY install it’s own electric chair ready to be used for the first time in over a quarter of a century. Filming was conducted inside the lethal injection chamber in Illinois and the crew spoke to inmates inside Georgia’s death row. This was a very personal film for reporter Sir Charles Wheeler. His wife Dip worked for Amnesty International and for years advocated for the end of executions. By the time the film went out over 100 death row inmates had been exonerated.
