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THE EXONERATED. By Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen. The Culture Project, 45 Bleecker Theater, New York City. 12 October 2002.
For their new documentary play, The Exonerated, writers Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen interviewed sixty people who had spent anywhere from two to twenty-two years on death row. Incorporating six of those interviews with court testimony, police interrogation, and personal correspondence, Blank and Jensen have crafted a powerful indictment against the criminal justice system and capital punishment.
The narrative spans the arrest, imprisonment and eventual exoneration and release of five men and one woman-three of whom are African American and three Caucasian. The cases include coercion of suspects to make misleading statements, representation by attorneys who were not disinterested parties, and inconclusive fingerprint evidence. Prison life is presented as treacherous: when one prisoner was assaulted by his fellow inmates, they carved the words 'good pussy' on his buttocks. Prison held other horrors: exercise had to be taken in a yard where the electric chair was in full sight. After release, some had trouble adjusting: one needed to lock himself in to feel safe, another resorted to drugs to cope with the loss of self. But...