The Trials of Derryl Hunt

I would like to thank Luke from our affinity group who gave me the name of a documentary called The Trials of Derryl Hunt. It tells the story of an 19 year old African-American man, Derryl Hunt, who was wrongfully charged in the rape and murder of a white reporter in North Carolina. He was sentenced by an all white jury based only upon testimony from a former Ku-Klux-Klan member and subsequently served nearly 20 years in prison. In 1994 DNA evidence proved his innocence and he subsequently fought in court until 2004 when he was fully exonerated.

Derryl Hunt's case serves as a clear demonstration of institutional racism as a clearly prejudice legal system unjustly imprisoned an innocent man. After his exoneration, Hunt became involved in The Innocence Project which works to exonerate wrongfully imprisoned people using DNA evidence. The mission of the project is to fix the criminal justice system which they and many others see as a flawed system.

This is a great resource to show at your school to help people understand how institutional racism manifests itself in society today. I have not had a chance to see the film myself but everything I have read makes it sound worth a viewing.

Check out these links to the film's site and The Innocence Project