Can a documentary save a man from execution? Damien Wayne Echols, convicted for a triple murder, hopes so, reports Duncan Campbell.
It is almost the classic courthouse drama scene. The judge addresses the young man standing before him and tells him that officials will shortly "cause to be administered a continuous intravenous injection of a lethal quantity of an ultra-short-acting barbiturate in combination with a chemical paralytic agent into your body until you are dead". It may not quite pack the emotional punch of "and you will be hanged by the neck until you are dead and may God have mercy on your soul", but the end result is the same.
In the documentary, Paradise Lost, to be released on DVD shortly, Judge David Burnett delivers the words to Damien Wayne Echols, one of three young men convicted of the horrific killing and butchering of three eight-year-old boys in West Memphis, Arkansas, in 1993. Recalling his judgment on Echols - the other two defendants, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley junior, were sentenced to life imprisonment - Burnett says that perhaps we would be able to tell from the catch in his voice that it was never easy delivering a death sentence. Indeed we can, because the trial was filmed, and that footage, along with the access the film-makers obtained to the defendants and to the stepfather of one of the victims, is at the heart of this disturbing documentary.
Did the judge have more than the obvious reasons to pause in his judgment? Echols, then aged 18, and his two co- defendants, aged 16 and 17, were arrested a month after the murders, not least because, with their dark clothes and their love of heavy metal and Stephen King books, they were seen as satanic. Echols had a not untypically teenage interest in the Wicca religion and the mutilations of the victims' bodies led detectives to conclude that some cult must be involved and that the trio were the likely suspects.
After 12 hours of questioning, Misskelley, who had an IQ of 72 and was clearly not fully aware of what was happening around him, made a confession implicating the other two. The confession is rambling and includes some details that turned out to be wrong, such as the time of the crime. Nonetheless, he was tried separately and convicted, but declined to give evidence against the others. At the trial of Echols and Baldwin in 1994, "experts" on the occult explained the telltale signs of cults, including the wearing of black T-shirts. They were convicted.
The two film-makers, Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky, shot not only the trial and courtroom activity but kept their hand-held cameras running in the patch of Arkansas where the drama unfolded. Very soon, two main characters emerge in Paradise Lost: Damien Echols, the typical, rebellious, moody small-town boy who doesn't fit in; and John Mark Byers, the stepfather of the murdered Christopher Byers. Byers senior is a good ol' boy who stands 2.04 metres tall and holds a beer in one hand and a Bible in the other and who looks forward, as he reminds us on many occasions, to being able to dance on the graves of the "devil-worshipping sons of bitches" who killed his little boy.
The original Paradise Lost film was bought by HBO and was aired on US cable television in 1996 under its full title, The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills. It had an immediate impact, and the impression was that a miscarriage of justice had unfolded, as the result of what was described as a "modern-day witch trial".
Four years later, Berlinger and Sinofsky returned to the case, and made a second Paradise Lost, subtitled Revelations. The film-makers were still able to gain remarkable access to the main protagonists. By 2000, Echols, an academic-looking young man dressed significantly in white, is on death row and still anxious to protest his innocence. He has been raped frequently while inside, we are told. He comes across now as a smart, thoughtful figure. When asked if he has "found God" while in jail, he replies: "I didn't know God was lost." He has, however, lost interest in Wicca: "I don't want to put a label on myself any more." His co-defendants, as in the trial, play much smaller parts.
John Mark Byers, meanwhile, is centre-stage once more. Since the first film, his wife, a heroin addict, has died in indeterminate circumstances. Byers himself is now clearly medicated, ready to return to the scene of the crime and carry out a symbolic burial of Echols, Baldwin and Misskelley, even setting fire to their "graves" as he puffs on a cigar and yells: "You want to eat my baby's testicles? Burn, you son of a bitch, burn! I stomp on your grave!" Meanwhile, a West Memphis Three support group, inspired by the first film, has evolved. They have their own website (www.wm3.org) which has already had more than two million hits.
Supporters suspect that Byers might be the murderer, and he is aware that even local people are starting to suggest just that. He agrees to take a polygraph test, which provides part of the drama of the film. The confrontations between the Memphis Three camp, mainly fairly savvy folk, and Byers, a trailer-trash caricature, punctuate the film, as does the music of Metallica, about whom the same film-makers later made a documentary, Some Kind of Monster, in 2004.
Since Paradise Lost, Andrew Jarecki's 2003 documentary, Capturing the Friedmans, has enjoyed great critical and commercial success. The film told the story of a seemingly normal suburban family whose life was suddenly turned upside down by the arrest of the father and youngest son for paedophilia.
Both films differ from the more familiar style of British documentaries on miscarriages of justice, where the aim is to present an unequivocal case for someone's innocence. With the Friedmans and, to a lesser extent, Paradise Lost, the audience is left to make up their own minds. What would we do if we were on the jury? Who do we believe? How much of our attitude is framed by prejudice?
Paradise Lost 2 was completed in 2000, and at the time there was a feeling that Damien Echols might finally be taking the long walk either towards lethal injection or to freedom. Five years on, he is still on death row. I am left wanting to see the third instalment.
Paradise Lost 1 and 2 will be released on DVD on June 20 (Warp)
