Gov. Mike Beebe said Tuesday that he did not plan to grant pardons in the “West Memphis Three” case unless evidence showed that someone else was to blame for the murders of three young boys in 1993. The three men who were convicted, Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley Jr., now have 10 years of what amounts to unsupervised probation after being released from custody on Friday in a swiftly arranged plea deal. After an HBO documentary detailed their case in 1996, the men garnered celebrity support and hefty donations. The original murder convictions were set aside amid doubts about the evidence. Peter Jackson Helped West Memphis Three Defense
'The Hobbit' director and partner Fran Walsh bankrolled key defense investigations and celebrated as the trio were released on Friday.
New Zealand time.
“We wanted to see Damien, Jason and Jessie walk free. I need to vent,” Jackson wrote.
Describing the case against the trio as farcical and a miscarriage of justice, Jackson also confessed to having to “suppress a deep anger” due to the circumstances of their release.
“Let's not think for a second that justice was served today. “There's also a triple child killer who has walked free for the last 18 years ... seemingly an unimportant detail in today's white-washing job,” Jackson wrote.
Activist group Free West Memphis 3 said the support of Jackson and Walsh had been "instrumental" in the release of Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley after 18 years.
According to a statement from the group, Jackson and Walsh, “funded key investigative efforts on behalf of the defense, in an effort to prove the wrongful conviction of the three men in prison.”
Jackson and Walsh funded an extensive private investigation over a number of years, which led to uncovering crucial new DNA evidence; they were instrumental in hiring some of the country’s leading forensic experts to re-evaluate the case and uncover new witnesses, all of which contributed to the Arkansas Supreme Court’s decision to reopen the case.
Jackson’s spokesman, Matt Dravitzki, told New Zealand newspaper The Dominion Post on Sunday that Jackson and Walsh were moved to help after seeing HBO documentary Paradise Lost.
Atom Egoyan Frames West Memphis Three
Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky's trilogy of documentaries detailing the wrongful conviction of the West Memphis Three has just reached its conclusion, with the happy news of the three's release. And now Atom Egoyan (Exotica, The Sweet Hereafter, Adoration) is set to dramatise their story in Devil's Knot.
Shooting on Devil's Knot starts in the spring. Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory debuts at the Toronto International Film Festival next month.
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