Reason: Anthony Fisher- Jessica Blake & Erik Jenson on The Exonerated: ‘True Stories of The Innocent Sprung From Death Row’

Source:Reason Magazine– Talking about “The Exonerated.”

Source:Real Life Journal

“This play is neither left-wing nor right-wing. We don’t have an agenda, our job is to stay out of the way and just let the people tell their stories,” says Erik Jensen, co-author (with wife Jessica Blank) of The Exonerated, a one-act documentary play depicting the true-life experiences of exonerated Death Row prisoners. The Exonerated is celebrating its 10th anniversary with a limited run at the Culture Project in New York City.

Jensen and Blank talk with Reason TV’s Anthony L. Fisher about how the play influenced former Gov. George Ryan’s decision to commute the sentences of Illinois’ Death Row prisoners to life imprisonment, the support of the Innocence Project, and what life is like for freed prisoners upon returning to society.

The play is directed by actor Bob Balaban and runs through December 2nd, 2012. The Exonerated features a rotating cast including Broadway regulars and well-known performers such as Stockard Channing, Brain Dennehy, Steve Earle, Marg Helgenberger, Christine Lahti, Delroy Lindo, Lyle Lovett, Michael McKean, Joe Morton, Chris Sarandon, Martin Short, and Trudie Styler. The cast also includes two exonerated prisoners playing themselves: Kerry Max Cook and Sunny Jacobs.

About 4.30 minutes. Produced by Anthony L. Fisher. Camera by Jim Epstein.”

From Reason Magazine

Anyone whose pro-death penalty and I’m one of them, should be in favor of a long appeals process. To make sure that we get the right people, so to speak and not rush to put to death the wrong people. Not an appeals process that extends the process indefinitely, but that allows inmates and lawyers to bring new appeals, as long as they can bring new evidence that suggests that they may be innocent. So we are always executing the right people and not putting to death the wrong people.

That is the only way to make sure that the death penalty can be applied fairly. Putting the wrong person to death even by accident, whether you’re talking about manslaughter, or giving the wrong person the death penalty, is not a mistake that you can take back. I would be fine with a short appeals process without the death penalty. Because if the convicted murderers lawyers truly believe their client is innocent, they can still work on the case. And if they find evidence that proves their client is innocent, they can always present that evidence and open that case back up.

Every pro-death penalty person, especially if they consider themselves to be pro-life and pro-death penalty at the same time, should be in favor of a death penalty case like this. Because it makes their case for the death penalty better. That there isn’t a rush to put someone to death. Because they know if the person is guilty they’ll never leave prison anyway. And it gives opponents of the death penalty less evidence and a smaller case to use against the death penalty. And they would have a harder time saying that innocent people have been put to death because of the death penalty.