Is it a condemnation of or a testament to our legal system that falsely accused men can spend decades in prison, then, thanks to DNA evidence and the courts of appeals, be sprung? And what does it say about our society that many of these men get turned back onto the streets with no prospects for the future? Jessica Sanders' documentary After Innocence examines seven prisoners and former prisoners at varying stages of pre- and post-exoneration, and considers how they're dealing with freedom. Some take a sanguine view of having spent 20-odd years in jail for crimes they didn't commit, while others get angry anew every time they pick up a job application and have to figure out how to answer the question "Have you been ever been convicted?"
Taylor's cast of exonerees is both her documentary's greatest asset and its greatest liability. All of their stories are fascinating in ways that only the sourest "bad beat" story can be. They were victims of misidentification by victims in a lot of cases, and even after the DNA testing surfaced to clear their names, some continued to be victimized by prosecutors who'd rather keep innocent men incarcerated than complicate their paperwork. One Louisiana attorney interviewed in After Innocence goes so far as to say that he won't use the term "wrongly convicted," because the system itself isn't wrong, even when it produces the wrong result. Throughout the movie, Taylor returns to the case of Wilton Dedge, whose retrial is put off repeatedly by the state of Florida because its legal combine isn't ready to handle the future repercussions of overturning a conviction based on DNA.
But as compelling as Dedge's story is, does it really belong in a movie called After Innocence? Too often, the documentary gets sidetracked by the agenda of The Innocence Project, a non-profit organization that provides DNA testing and legal aid to prisoners. The Innocence Project does fine work, but the story of how people end up accidentally in jail is really another kind of documentary. After Innocence promised to be about how exonerees learn to trust again, and rebuild their lives. It needs more comments like those of Scott Hornoff, who talks about how prison is designed to "break your spirit," regardless of whether you're guilty. Hornoff is also an interesting character, because he had an affair with the woman he was accused of killing—which makes him "guilty," though not of the crime for which he was convicted. Taylor does her cause no real favors by trotting out only the most articulate, most clearly railroaded exonerees. It should be just as chilling to learn that even the shady get screwed.