filmmakers go to arkansas to create a documentary about
three sinister teen murderers, on a fluke, from a person clipping a short article on p. 31 of the NYTimes. One gets death, the other two life in prison. Eighteen years later:
"I really do believe," Damien told the filmmakers in 2009, "these people would have gotten away with murdering me if it would not have been for what you guys did, for being there in the very beginning and getting this whole thing on tape so the rest of the world sees what was happening."
However, I'm not entirely sure that the GQ article adequately explained an Alfred plea or the implications of such. Basically, an Alford plea is someone saying that they are innocent but there's enough evidence to convince a jury that they did it. It came about because someone was going to be tried for a murder -- which he said he didn't do -- and, if he pled not guilty but was found guilty, he'd automatically get the death sentence. He pled for a lesser degree of murder.
This article mentions nothing of the impact of them pleading guilty to murders that -- the article seems to strongly indicate -- they would have been let off upon trial for. Send someone innocent to jail for 18 years? Bad. Especially bad in terms of lawsuits against the state. Sentence someone to 18 years, time served, for pleading guilty to murder? Not bad. Says the prosecutor:
Ellington inherited the West Memphis Three. He took office less than a year ago, and he was in private practice when John Fogleman told a jury that Damien had no soul. Defending those verdicts now, after so many years and so much scrutiny? Maggot sandwich. Get it over with.
"I had one shot," he says, "one lucky shot, and that was: Get rid of the whole case. That Alford plea was a gift. A gift to me."
Ellington smiles when he says that; the corners of his eyes crinkle. He has sandy hair cut in a boy's regular, and big weathered hands. He's personable and friendly and, in the early autumn, visibly relieved. A month earlier, he was preparing for the December hearing, expecting to lose but willing to go down swinging. And now it's over...
Ellington flat-out laughs. "You're asking me to dissect a case to justify my position, when, really, thus far I feel like I've been about as lucky as anyone in the whole game," he says. "I kind of feel like I came out of this the victor by not getting my ass handed to me."
I'm willing to predict there was a lot stronger case against these three than the article would lead readers to believe and that the sanity of Damien -- great name -- was not the only justification for the plea.
