''The Exonerated'' is a made-for-
cable television
Cable television is a system of delivering television programming to consumers via radio frequency (RF) signals transmitted through coaxial cables, or in more recent systems, light pulses through fibre-optic cables. This contrasts with broa ...
film that dramatizes the stories of six people, some of whom, were wrongfully convicted of murder and other offenses, placed on
death row
Death row, also known as condemned row, is a place in a prison that houses inmates awaiting Capital punishment, execution after being convicted of a capital crime and sentenced to death. The term is also used figuratively to describe the state of ...
, and later exonerated and freed after serving varying years in prison. It was based on a successful
stage play of the same name written by
Erik Jensen and
Jessica Blank
Jessica Blank (born in New Haven, Connecticut), is an American actress, writer, and director who works in film, television, and theater. She is also a consultant and public speaker on story and social change.
Early life and education
Blank grew u ...
and first aired on the former
CourtTV cable television
Cable television is a system of delivering television programming to consumers via radio frequency (RF) signals transmitted through coaxial cables, or in more recent systems, light pulses through fibre-optic cables. This contrasts with broa ...
network on January 27, 2005. It is
directed
Director may refer to:
Literature
* ''Director'' (magazine), a British magazine
* ''The Director'' (novel), a 1971 novel by Henry Denker
* ''The Director'' (play), a 2000 play by Nancy Hasty
Music
* Director (band), an Irish rock band
* ''Di ...
by
Bob Balaban
Robert Elmer Balaban (born August 16, 1945) is an American actor, author, comedian, director and producer. He was one of the producers nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture for ''Gosford Park'' (2001), in which he also appeared.
Balab ...
and was produced by
Radical Media
Radical media are communication outlets that disperse action-oriented political agendas utilizing existing communication infrastructures and its supportive users. These types of media are differentiated from conventional mass communications thro ...
.
Actors played the roles of the five men and one woman. It stars David Brown, Jr. (the only cast member to have appeared in the stage play - he played Robert Earl Hayes),
Brian Dennehy
Brian Manion Dennehy (; July 9, 1938 – April 15, 2020) was an American actor of stage, television, and film. He won two Tony Awards, an Olivier Award, and a Golden Globe, and received six Primetime Emmy Award nominations. Dennehy had roles in ...
as
Gary Gauger Gary Gauger is a formerly imprisoned convict, who was falsely accused and convicted of the murders of his parents, Morris and Ruth Gauger, and later exonerated. Following the murder on April 8, 1993, Gauger ultimately spent nearly two years in priso ...
,
Danny Glover
Danny Lebern Glover (; born July 22, 1946) is an American actor, film director, and political activist. He is widely known for his lead role as Roger Murtaugh in the ''Lethal Weapon'' film series. He also had leading roles in his films include ...
as
David Keaton
The Quincy Five were a group of five young African American men from Quincy, Florida, who were charged with the 1970 murder of a Leon County deputy sheriff. The men – Johnny Lee Burns, Alphonso Figgers, Johnny Frederick, Dave Roby Keaton Jr. ...
,
Delroy Lindo
Delroy George Lindo (born 18 November 1952) is an English-American actor. He is the recipient of such accolades as a NAACP Image Award, a Satellite Award, and nominations for a Drama Desk Award, a Helen Hayes Award, a Tony Award, two Critics' Cho ...
as
Delbert Tibbs
Delbert Lee Tibbs (June 19, 1939 – November 23, 2013) was an American man who was wrongfully convicted of murder and rape in 1974 in Florida and sentenced to death. Later exonerated, Tibbs became a writer and anti-death penalty activist.
Early ...
,
Aidan Quinn
Aidan Quinn (born March 8, 1959) is an American actor who made his film debut in '' Reckless'' (1984). He has starred in over 80 feature films, including ''Desperately Seeking Susan'' (1985), '' The Mission'' (1986), ''Stakeout'' (1987), ''Aval ...
as
Kerry Max Cook and
Susan Sarandon
Susan Abigail Sarandon (; née Tomalin; born October 4, 1946) is an American actorMcCabe, Bruce"Susan Sarandon, the 'actor'" ''Boston Globe''. April 17, 1981. Retrieved January 21, 2021. and activist. She is the recipient of various accolades, ...
as
Sonia "Sunny" Jacobs. The script was based on the exonerees' personal experiences as well as court records and media accounts.
Jessica Blank, who is married to Erik Jensen, got the idea for the play when she moved from
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Minneapolis () is the largest city in Minnesota, United States, and the county seat of Hennepin County. The city is abundant in water, with thirteen lakes, wetlands, the Mississippi River, creeks and waterfalls. Minneapolis has its origins ...
to
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
. She and Jensen attended a conference about the
death penalty
Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...
and listened to stories about wrongful convictions and confessions gained via
torture
Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons such as punishment, extracting a confession, interrogation for information, or intimidating third parties. Some definitions are restricted to acts c ...
, threats and deception. The couple spent the summer of 2000 interviewing exonerees throughout the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
and adapted the stories of six people into a script.
The play was first presented in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
; the final performance was in Minneapolis in 2002. For their efforts, Jensen and Blank received the Champion of Justice Award from the
National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers
The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) is an American criminal defense organization.
Members include private criminal defense lawyers, public defenders, active U.S. military defense counsel, law professors, judges, and defe ...
.
The exonerated
*
Kerry Max Cook: Convicted of murdering a neighbor in
Texas
Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...
in 1977; exonerated in 1997.
*
Gary Gauger Gary Gauger is a formerly imprisoned convict, who was falsely accused and convicted of the murders of his parents, Morris and Ruth Gauger, and later exonerated. Following the murder on April 8, 1993, Gauger ultimately spent nearly two years in priso ...
: Convicted of murdering his mother and father in
Illinois
Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolita ...
in 1993; exonerated in 1996.
*
Robert Earl Hayes
The name Robert is an ancient Germanic given name, from Proto-Germanic "fame" and "bright" (''Hrōþiberhtaz''). Compare Old Dutch ''Robrecht'' and Old High German ''Hrodebert'' (a compound of '' Hruod'' ( non, Hróðr) "fame, glory, honou ...
: African-American racetrack worker convicted of the murder of a white woman in Florida in 1990; found not guilty at retrial in 1997. New DNA testing later confirmed his guilt.
* Sonia "Sunny" Jacobs: Convicted, along with common-law husband,
Jesse Tafero
Jesse Joseph Tafero (October 12, 1946 – May 4, 1990) was convicted of murder and executed via electric chair in the U.S. state of Florida for the murders of 39-year-old Florida Highway Patrol officer Phillip A. Black (who served 9 years with Flo ...
, and his friend, Walter Rhodes, of murdering Philip Black, a Florida state trooper and Donald Irwin, a visiting
Canadian
Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...
constable
A constable is a person holding a particular office, most commonly in criminal law enforcement. The office of constable can vary significantly in different jurisdictions. A constable is commonly the rank of an officer within the police. Other peop ...
in 1976; Jacobs was not exonerated. Her death sentence was overturned in 1981, and she was sentenced to life with a 25-year minimum mandatory sentence. In 1992 her case was reversed on appeal, and she pleaded to second-degree murder, and was released on time served. Tafero was incinerated in a botched electrocution in 1990. In 2011, she married Peter Pringle, who had himself been exonerated after being sentenced to death in Ireland for the murder of two officers of the Garda Síochána, the Irish police force, Henry Byrne and John Morley. The officers were shot while chasing three armed masked men who had robbed a bank and were fleeing the crime scene. Their car collided with the getaway vehicle and the robbers opened fire. In Ireland, the murders caused national outrage. A former IRA volunteer, Pringle was in the area and came under suspicion.
*
David Keaton
The Quincy Five were a group of five young African American men from Quincy, Florida, who were charged with the 1970 murder of a Leon County deputy sheriff. The men – Johnny Lee Burns, Alphonso Figgers, Johnny Frederick, Dave Roby Keaton Jr. ...
: convicted of murdering a Florida police officer in 1971; exonerated in 1973.
*
Delbert Tibbs
Delbert Lee Tibbs (June 19, 1939 – November 23, 2013) was an American man who was wrongfully convicted of murder and rape in 1974 in Florida and sentenced to death. Later exonerated, Tibbs became a writer and anti-death penalty activist.
Early ...
: African-American Florida man convicted of murdering a white man and raping his girlfriend in 1974; exonerated in 1976. He was eventually freed in 1979 after serving time for an unrelated charge.
At the end of the movie, each actor is voiced over by the real life exonerees and then fades to show them as their current selves at the time of filming.
Aidan Quinn
Aidan Quinn (born March 8, 1959) is an American actor who made his film debut in '' Reckless'' (1984). He has starred in over 80 feature films, including ''Desperately Seeking Susan'' (1985), '' The Mission'' (1986), ''Stakeout'' (1987), ''Aval ...
reprised his role as
Kerry Max Cook in the staging of ''The Exonerated'' at the Dublin Theatre Festival in
Dublin
Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of th ...
,
Ireland
Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...
, in October 2006 as well as the stage version in New York City.
David Soul
David Soul (born David Richard Solberg; August 28, 1943) is an American-British actor and singer. He is known for his role as Detective Kenneth "Hutch" Hutchinson in the television series ''Starsky & Hutch'' from 1975 to 1979; Joshua Bolt on ' ...
took over the role of Gary Gauger for several of the Dublin performances.
See also
*
List of exonerated death row inmates
This list contains names of people who were found guilty of capital crimes and placed on death row but later found to be wrongly convicted. Many of these exonerees' sentences were overturned by acquittal or pardon, but some of those listed were ...
*
List of wrongful convictions in the United States
This list of wrongful convictions in the United States includes people who have been legally exonerated, including people whose convictions have been overturned or vacated, and who have not been retried because the charges were dismissed by the s ...
References
External links
Official website for "The Exonerated" movieErik Jensen and Jessica Blank audio interview*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Exonerated, The
2005 films
Films about capital punishment
Films directed by Bob Balaban
2000s legal films
Overturned convictions in the United States
2000s crime films
Films about miscarriage of justice