As you may be able to tell, I enjoy crime documentaries. Netflix has been excellent at releasing documentaries that expose the holes in our investigative and justice systems. I recently watched "Long Shot", a 40 minute documentary about a man possibly facing death row simply because he could not prove his alibi.Juan Catalan had an older brother who was involved in gangs and violence. However, Juan did not follow in his brother's footsteps. When an eyewitness supposedly matches Juan to a violent crime, he is suddenly facing the possibility of death row.
All this time, Juan denies he committed the crime and realizes he had an alibi: he was at a Dodgers game. But providing a ticket stub was not enough. He had to prove he was there.
His lawyer works hard to try to provide this evidence. It is a nail-biting process.
The documentary leaves us with thinking about the "What ifs". There were so many things that happened that if the stars had not aligned, Juan's outcome may have been much less pleasant. The film asks us to try to not live in paranoia of the what ifs, but you have to wonder...
My husband and I agreed that if the documentary accurately portrays the case, the evidence against Juan was weak. If he had been convicted on the "evidence" presented and sent to death row, then that is most certainly an injustice. This felt like a case where he was guilty until he could prove himself innocent which is the opposite of what I like to think our justice system is about. Maybe I'm wrong.
Did you watch this documentary? What did you take away from it?
No comments:
Post a Comment