1. A specific scene that got to me was when Vincent Moto, a man who was wrongly convicted for ten years, was talking about how he could not be a father in prison because he had nothing to give to his child. He explained that he could only be a dad who talked about his kid, but he could not actually do anything to better the life of his child. The scene made me feel really angry because this man was an innocent man who was paying for another person's crime, and his child was paying for it too because they took her father from her. I was mad that a mistake in the criminal justice system was affecting the life of a child who needed to have her father to care for her and to guide her as she grew up and experienced life. Instead, she went years without the presence of her father.
It was made clear that cases like these affect the family of the person who is wrongly convicted just as much as the person who is convicted. Families will spend years without their loved one because of mistakes made in the criminal justice system. I cannot imagine what it must feel like to know a loved one is innocent and not be able to do much to prove their innocence. It is sad to know both the families and the wrongly imprisoned lost years and years of valuable time together.
2. Something that surprised me in the film was the case of Wilton Dedge. In this case, DNA evidence had already proven him innocent, but the criminal justice system basically ignored this fact for over three years. It was very clear that this man was innocent, but they still took more years from his life, in addition to the many years they had already taken from him, before they set him free.
The people that were fighting to prove Dedge's innocence worked so hard to make a case, but it was just pushed aside and argued against. It shocks me that people were perfectly fine with continuing to convict a man who had done nothing in order to not admit that they made a mistake. I do not know how someone could continue to live life without feeling guilt for imprisoning an innocent man.
3. After viewing the film, I still wonder how much of a change these men have managed to make in regards to fighting for those who are wrongly imprisoned and if the criminal justice system has done anything to prevent more cases like those of these men. I am still a little shocked as to finding out how many people are wrongly imprisoned in the United States because I never imagined it to be such a high number.
I would like to continue to research cases of others who are wrongly imprisoned. I found this to be a very interesting subject that turns out to be more common than I imagined it to be. I would like to research more current statistics, facts, and cases of the wrongly imprisoned today and what is being done to help their cases.
