Time Simply Passes is a documentary film which premiered in 2015.
The topic is the criminal justice system in the US, with special focus on a case of wrongful conviction: the case of James Joseph Richardson, an African American man, who served more than 20 years in prison for a crime he did not commit.
Here is some basic information about this film:
** Writer, producer, and director: Ty Flowers
** Available on TUBI TV
** Language: English
** Subtitles: English
** Run time: 54 minutes
THE CASE
James Joseph Richardson -- born 1935, and the father of seven children -- lived in Arcadia, Florida. In 1967, all his children died. They were poisoned.
In 1968, James Richardson was arrested and charged with poisoning his oldest child. He was tried in a court of law where he was found guilty. The sentence was death.
He was on death row for four years (1968-1972), but the sentence was not carried out. In 1972, his sentence was converted to life in prison.
In 1989, his case was reopened because his lawyer Mark Lane was able to prove that he had not received a fair trial in 1968.
The evidence against him had little or no credibility. It was fabricated by the police and introduced into the trial by the prosecutor. It was accepted by the judge and this allowed the jury to find him guilty.
The police and prosecutor were under pressure to solve this case. They needed to find a person who could be charged with this horrible crime. They needed to close the case.
James Richardson was chosen. They said he had means, motive and opportunity. They did not look for any other suspect. He was a suitable candidate, who was found guilty and sentenced to death.
The prosecutor wanted to be sure that Richardson was convicted for this crime. He had a devious strategy:
He did not charge him with the murder of seven children. He only charged him with the murder of his first child. If he lost the case, he was going to charge him with the murder of his second child. If he lost the case, he was going to charge him with the murder of his third child. He was prepared to carry on like this until he got a conviction.
In 1989, having served more than 20 years in prison, Richardson was granted a second trial. Having heard all the relevant facts, the judge declared that Richardson was innocent and free to go. He was in effect exonerated.
In 1989, he was a free man, but he had no job and no home. How was he going to support himself? The authorities released him, but they did not do anything to help him start his life in freedom.
At the time, the state of Florida had no legislation to deal with a situation where a prisoner had been the victim of a wrongful conviction.
In 2008, the state of Florida introduced a law which offered economic compensation to a prisoner who had been the victim of a wrongful conviction, but the law had many conditions which made it difficult for a former prisoner to get any compensation.
According to this law, the prisoner’s innocence must be proved by DNA evidence.
Since his case took place in 1967 and 1968 -- long before DNA testing was available -- Richardson could apply, but his application would be denied.
In 2014, the state of Florida introduced a law which offers compensation to a prisoner who has been the victim of a wrongful conviction before 1979 and who is unable to get any other compensation from the state.
This law offers a compensation of 50,000 dollars for each year of wrongful incarceration.
Having served 21 years in prison, Richardson should be entitled to a compensation of 1,050,000 dollars.
When Richardson applied, his application was accepted, but for a while no money was paid.
Apparently, the compensation will not be paid as a lump
sum. It will be paid in annual installments of 50,000 dollars. In
2016, more than 25 years after he was released in 1989, he finally received his first check of 50,000 dollars.
Today Richardson is more than 80 years old. His health is not good. If his compensation is planned to be paid over 21 years, with an annual rate of 50,000 dollars, it is difficult to see how he can live long enough to receive the full amount.
What about the leading members of the criminal justice system in Florida -- the sheriff, the public prosecutor, and the trial judge – who were responsible for this miscarriage of justice? What happened to them?
The answer is nothing.
People who work for the criminal justice system in the US are almost never punished for their actions while on the job; not even when they break the rules, because they have what is known as qualified immunity.
In addition, there is a statute of limitations on cases of prosecutorial misconduct which runs for five years.
Whenever such a case is discovered and proved ten or twenty years after the fact, as is often the case, it is far too late to do anything about it.
In this film, the story of the case is told in great detail. There are interviews with people who followed his case over the years and who tried to help him.
Archive footage is used extensively to tell the story of his case. Clippings of newspaper articles are shown to illustrate how this case was reported by the media.
RATINGS AND REVIEWS
What do reviewers say about this film? On IMDb it has a rating of 75 percent, which corresponds to a rating of 3.8 stars on Amazon.
There are seven user reviews on IMDb. Here are the headlines and the ratings:
100 = No humanity in the human condition
100 = What a good movie
100 = See how our judicial system works against us. Must see
90 = A moving documentary about injustice
80 = Crazy story!
Two reviews offer no specific rating, but both are
positive. Here are the headlines:
** A real injustice
** A very sad story that needs to be known
As you can see, these reviews offer a rating which is higher than the average rating on the website.
On Amazon there are at the moment 35 ratings, 33 with reviews. The average rating is 4.6 stars, which corresponds to a rating of 92 percent.
Here are the details:
5 stars = 71 percent
4 stars = 20 percent
3 stars = 9 percent
2 stars = 0 percent
1 star = 0 percent
Here are the headlines of some five-star reviews:
** Elite injustice documentary
** A film about how far and how long government will go to keep an innocent man down
** A moving documentary about injustice
** Very well researched documentary
** An easy 5-star rating
CONCLUSION
What do I think about it? In my opinion, this is an important film about an important topic.
I understand the numerous positive reviews and I agree with them.
I want to go all the way to the top with this product. I think it deserves a rating of five stars (100 percent).
REFERENCES
# 1. Documentary films
** The Thin Blue Line (1988)
** Murder on a Sunday Morning (2001)
** After Innocence (2005)
** The Trials of Darryl Hunt (2006)
** The Confessions (2010)
** The Central Park Five (2012)
** An Unreal Dream (2013)
** A Murder in the Park (2014)
** Crown Heights (2017)
# 2. Historical dramas
** Call Northside 777 (1948)
** The Hurricane (1999)
** Conviction (2010)
# 3. Books
** Convicted but Innocent: Wrongful Conviction and Public Policy by C. Ronald Huff, Arye Rattner and Edward Sagarin (1996)
** Wrongful Convictions and Miscarriages of Justice by C. Ronald Huff and Martin Killias (2013)
** Wrongful Conviction and Criminal Justice Reform by Marvin Zalman and Julia Carrano (2013)
** Wrongful Convictions: True Murder Cases -- Unbelievable Miscarriages of Justice by Jack Smith (2015)
** Arcadia Revisited: The Story of James Joseph Richardson by Mark Lane (2015)
** Wrongful Convictions and the DNA Revolution by Daniel S. Medwed (2017)
** Wrongful Convictions by Micheal Poncelet (2019)
** Blind Injustice: A Former Prosecutor Exposes the Psychology and Politics of Wrongful Convictions by Mark Godsey (2019)
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