I grew up in New Jersey, so I was generally aware that five black and Latino boys only slightly older than me had been convicted of raping a white woman in Central Park, and that a lot of people felt that the boys had gotten a raw deal because of the color of their skin. I was also generally aware of the developments in the case many years later.
I went into this limited series (four episodes) thinking that my general knowledge of what happened, along with my past experience as a criminal defense attorney, was going to serve as emotional armor, but this project pierced my soul. Learning the details of what happened to those boys broke my heart, in the way that it is broken every time I see video of an unarmed person of color (POC) gunned down in the street or treated like a vile beast by people with badges who are taught that it is okay to channel their irrational fears and prejudices into anger, disrespect, and violence toward their fellow Americans. Not only did series creator Ava DuVernay genuinely touch POCs who have felt the sting of oppression by bringing to life on screen our fear and frustration in a way that even the most articulate of us cannot convey with just our words, but she also opened the eyes of a significant number of people who were not as aware of injustices like this, as evidenced by the overwhelming responses to this project, including tangible consequences for the case's prosecutors. As Joshua Jackson, who played defense attorney Mickey Joseph, keenly stated during Oprah Winfrey Presents: When They See Us Now, "What did I learn about the justice system is that it's the wrong name for it."
This series is a scathing but undeniable indictment of the U.S. criminal justice system. It exposes police brutality and abuse of authority that are so pervasive they strike fear and emotional paralysis across family generations. It depicts the coercive nature present in too many interrogations. It highlights the win-at-all-costs attitude of too many prosecutors, despite the "minister of justice" role that they are supposed to embody. It reveals some of the unfair tricks allowed in trials, such as parading the gruesome details of crimes in front of juries in an effort to shock them to convict based on the emotional desire to make someone pay for the crime, rather than the logical conclusion that the accused actually committed the crime. It lays bare the savagery taking place in our prison system, which facilitates the destruction of the humanity of inmates, rather than their rehabilitation. It sheds light on the crushing burden shouldered by prisoners' families, who are often made up of good, law-abiding people. It touches on the exploitation of those incarcerated by the system, and thereby warns of the many dangers inherent in the privatization of prisons. And it displays the impossible Odyssey of trying to piece together a life after serving one's sentence.
This production also emphasizes the great difference that individual people within the system can make, for better or for worse. On one hand, prosecutors like Linda Fairstein and Elizabeth Lederer used their discretion to send five innocent boys to jail while furthering their own careers; NYPD officers used their power to coerce confessions from those boys; and some corrections officers used their authority to abuse and dehumanize Korey Wise in prison. On the other hand, the boys' lawyers used their abilities to aggressively defend them and get enough of the evidence on the record to contribute to the case's reexamination years later; Correctional Officer Roberts (I still don't know if he's based on a real person) used his authority to help Wise and treat him like a human being, helping to keep him alive; and Nancy Ryan used her discretion as a prosecutor to play a large part in the reexamination of the case later.
As the real Kevin Richardson so aptly articulated in When They See Us Now, Fairstein was "one of many" that caused this injustice. There were many others within the system who followed her lead in steamrolling these boys. Had more of those people used their position to stand up for what was right, they might have been able to prevent this tragedy.
Similarly, people outside of the criminal justice system can make a huge difference, as well. Antron McCray was crushed by his father's abandonment, and Wise suffered from the long lapses between his mother's visits due to the hardships of those visits. Conversely, the support of the families of Richardson, Raymond Santana, and Yusef Salaam made a significant difference in their ability to cope with what happened to them. The support of the boys' Harlem community in protesting this injustice also played a huge part in keeping this case visible to the rest of the world, maintaining attention on the case and fueling its development, rather than allowing it to be buried and forgotten. It also needs to be highlighted that, while Matias Reyes played an instrumental part in creating this tragedy (among other tragedies), his desire to "do the right thing" as an older man also played an instrumental part in its eventual outcome, as well.
The series' soundtrack was perfect, from the nostalgic hip-hop anthems that opened Episode 1, to the somber score that accentuated key moments in which dialogue was not necessary appropriate. Moreover, the cinematography masterfully captured everything from the ominous criminal courtroom, to the dual beauty and secluded creepiness of Central Park, to the bustling and culturally rich community of Harlem, to the oasis-like Coney Island.
The one shaky area of this production was its depiction of the trial, due to some of the liberties it took in dramatizing the proceedings. I don't doubt that prosecutorial misconduct occured, but I highly doubt that the first time the boys' defense attorneys saw the confession tapes were during the trial. Discovery rules usually do not allow surprises like that in real life. Furthermore, prosecutors must turn over any exculpatory evidence to defense counsel upon learning of it, so a mistrial or some other heavy consequence probably would have occurred upon the discovery mid-trial by defense counsel that DNA tests had been conducted on a semen-filled sock that reflected negative matches for the boys' DNA. The real Santana implied during When They See Us Now that those DNA tests were actually discovered during depositions, in advance of the trial.
Finally, the key to the successful telling of this story was its cast. Veteran stars like John Leguizamo, Niecy Nash, Michael Kenneth Williams, Blair Underwood, and Famke Janssen provided solid supporting performances, but the production was carried by the extremely talented actors who played the accused as boys, as well as those who played them as men.
In this regard, one actor stood out as the MVP: Jharrel Jerome. As the only actor to play both the child and adult version of his character, he irresistibly drew in our sympathy by masterfully emoting a wide range of feelings like innocence, vulnerability, fear, strength, frustration, love, humor, duty, loyalty, disappointment, confusion, desperation, trust, and doubt, just to name a few. According to IMDB's trivia page for the series, Jerome lobbied for an audition while he was busy filming Mr. Mercedes...for which he had grown a beard. With the beard, he was afraid he would be considered too old to play the younger Korey, and he fully expected that the project would cast two different actors to play the part at different ages. After finishing Mr. Mercedes, he shaved his beard and auditioned again. DuVernay was so impressed by both his audition, and how much his facial hair aged him, that she cast him as Korey at both ages. Jerome's performance is exponentially more impressive, however, when you witness the real Wise on When They See Us Now, and you realize that Jerome's affectations in his role were not improvised or artificially created; instead, he has captured Wise's mannerisms and speech patterns with a startling degree of accuracy. In When They See Us Now, Jerome declared, "I could never be Korey Wise. No one could ever be Korey Wise and fill those shoes. I just did my best to embody him." Maybe so, but Jerome's performance was as good as it gets.
In closing, DuVernay and her colleagues have added something of great substance to our ongoing national conversation about our criminal justice system. As DuVernay so precisely stated in When They See Us Now, the U.S. criminal justice system is "not broken; it was built to be this way....It was built to oppress. It was built to control. It was built to shape our culture in a specific way that kept some people here and some people here. It was built for profit. It was built for political gain and power....It lives off of us, our taxpayer dollars, our votes, the goods that we buy that are made...inside of prisons. It lives off of our ignorance, and we can no longer be ignorant."
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