Documentary Screening: "True Justice"

Documentary Examines the Injustice of Criminal Justice

Early in True Justice, protagonist Bryan A. Stevenson asserts that the American criminal justice system “treats you better if you’re rich and guilty than if you’re poor and innocent.” This insight, and more like it, drawn from his own experience as a lawyer and an African-American man, inspired Stevenson to spend his life advocating for poor people, assisting in cases that saved dozens from the death penalty, and initiating reform litigation to purge the administration of criminal justice of the systematic racism it has developed and fostered since the days of the Dred Scott Case. As he sees it, the history of slavery and lynchings is one major reason for the high rate of death sentences in the South, and their disproportionate application to people of color.

The film shows how Stevenson founded the Equal Justice Initiative, whose stated purposes are ending mass incarceration and excessive punishment in the United States, challenging racial and economic injustice, and protecting basic human rights for the most vulnerable people in American society. There are interviews with both staff and clients, all of which make it clear how difficult and dangerous, and also crucial and empowering, this struggle can be.

A free screening of True Justice will take place on Saturday, October 12, 1:30 p.m., at the Niles Discovery Church, 36600 Niles Blvd. in Fremont as part of the Second Saturday Documentary Series. A discussion will follow the screening.
Produced and directed by Emmy winners Peter, Teddy and George Kunhardt, True Justice is at once a fascinating history lesson, a compelling biography, and a warning/call-to-arms about the need to take drastic action. America has become the nation with the highest rate of incarceration in the world and the most prolific executioner of any industrialization. And the specters of racism and classism haunt the whole system from top to bottom.

The Second Saturday Documentary Series is co-sponsored by the Niles Discovery Church and the San Jose Peace and Justice Center. Learn more about the series at bit.ly/nilesssds.