When They See Us
The Journey of the Court Room Drama
Introduction
Jessica Silbey in her essay ‘Patterns of Courtroom Justice’ traces the genre of legal films, which she names ‘trial films’.[1] Silbey describes how the court room drama takes the viewer on a journey in which there is a legal process with the implied promise of justice. In relation to the genre Silbey states that the “trial films, as a group, contain identifiable patterns of narrative structure, cinematic features, and character development that manifest assumptions, embolden expectations, and reproduce ideological notions of legality.”[2] For Silbey taking the viewer through the journey of justice requires three stages. Step one: by framing patterns, static symbols, and establishing shots. This is to establish the power and rule of law. Step two: by positioning, relation, and perspective. Silbey describes this as “[o]nce inside the courthouse and drenched with the details of the particular conflict whose resolution the legal process promises”[3] the relationships within law’s theatre are constant throughout the genre; where the actors and their relationships i.e. a lawyer and his client or victim and their attacker are tested and unfold. Step three: interpretive gridlock, the truth be told. For Silbey step three is “the trial film’s aim in meting out justice through the viewer-subject’s balancing of monumental structure and minute detail, diverse perspectives and a cute focus, the trial film’s finale is often an unsophisticated revelation of some hidden essential truth – be it the facts of the case or the law’s inability to assess those facts fairly.” [4]
Silbey’s given quote in the question is saying that the viewer-subject is made to experience the conclusion of the courtroom drama “as a triumph of neatly-tied loose ends”. The object is to simplify the process and present to the viewer how the decision is being made. It may be right to even say the viewer is given the position of the judge, a juror, or even the defendant and by simplifying the question into one of right or wrong, truth or falsehood, the decision is ultimately viewer-subject’s. In order of this to happen ‘for justice to be done, it must be seen to be done.’ The viewer is left with having to internalise the whole process as Sibley states this develops “a participatory perspective about the adversarial process and its ability to reconstruct a story from diverse angles, the law engages the viewer-subject as an inclusive system, its goal being individual and equal justice that the viewer-subject is made to both desire and effect.”[5]
This paper will critically discuss Silbey’s three steps theory to test the statement from her essay. The film that will be used to test Silbey’s theory is When They See Us a Netflix original series, directed and co-written by Ava DuVernay. The events are based in 1989 New York City. The film related to a white woman, namely Trisha Meili who on the 19th April 1989 was jogging in Central Park. Whilst jogging Trisha hit over the head and dragged into bushes where she was raped, beaten and was left for dead. A group of younger males who were at the park at the same time as the above incident occurred would later come to be known as the Central Park Five. Four black youths namely Antron McCray aged 14, Kevin Richardson aged 14, Yusef Salaam aged 15 and Korey Wise aged 16 and Latino youth Raymond Santana were interrogated and apprehended and were charged and convicted on charges of riot, robbery, assault attempted murder and the rape of Trisha Meili.
The media complained against and labelled the young particularly black men as “animals”, “savages” and “wolfpacks” who rove the street and rode the subways whilst perpetrating violence on a population who were terrified. In interpreting the five’s journey, Ava DuVernay pays specific attention to the frightening power of language with which the journalists and prosecutors referred to the teens. Ava portrays the lives of the Central Park Five as they are entangled into a “law and order” frenzy fuelled by the media. The drama depicts the boys being subjected to brutal treatment by the police who gained the boys confessions through cohesion and oppression bypassing safeguards such as interviewing minors without a presence of an accompanying adult. The young men were charged and sent to prison for six to fourteen years. In 2002 the men were exonerated of guilt after a Matias Reyes came forward and confessed to being the independent attacker of Trisha Meili. In When They See Us, the director, Ava sets out the common process by which a Latino teen and four black teens were found guilty of crimes which they did not commit.
Step one: by framing patterns, static symbols, and establishing shots.
The trial episode starts with radio news that says: “details didn’t matter because there was no script. They were coming downtown from a world of crack, welfare, guns, knifes, indifference, and ignorance. They were coming from a land of no fathers. They were coming from a wild province of the poor, and driven by a collective fury brimming with ripping energies of youth, their minds teeming with the violent images of the streets of the movies, they had only one goal: To smash, hurt, rob, stomp, rape.” Set in the 1980s New York saw an increase of financial wealth accompanied by the rise in social inequality. Housing and schools for the working class were underfunded and decaying. There was a rise in crime driven by poverty and unemployment was met by escalating police violence, meted out disproportionately in black and Latino neighbourhoods. This suggests to the subject-viewer that the defendants were troubled boys and that there is a presumption that they committed the crime.
The arrival to the court: The scene is filmed from the news reporters perspective. It focuses on the arrival and District Attorney Elizabeth Lederer who is representing the victim. The news reporter on the background reminds that it was “one of the most horrific crimes this city has seen”. There are numerous reporters trying to ask questions, police officers, paparazzi, and protestors surrounding Elizabeth Lederer while she makes her way to court. It is media frenzy with them all swarming like bees. There is a separation of white and black press during the arrival of the boys. The case is so high-profile. The viewer-subject is led, as if by hand, through the protesters and media to the courthouse which creates an impression the accused children are walking as if he was holding hands with the parents of the boys toward the courthouse. The parents are devastated and surprised to see so many eyes looking upon them. The music on the background while they make their way through the crowd emphasises the injustice and the motive “pa-ra-ra-pa” demonstrates that the big day has arrived. The movie takes place in 1989, but the soundtrack which features artists such as Frank Ocean, JAY-Z, Nipsey Hussle and more recent musicians. That demonstrates how Ava DuVernay wanted to portray a case set in the 1989 with a touch of modern that viewer could relate to. This can also be said of the boys were dressed in prior to the trial.
There is a pre-trial meeting with all the boys and their lawyers. During this meeting one of the lawyers says that the Judges are assigned cases and this is supposed to happen by a spinning of the wheel, so that it is random. But this was not done in this case. They gave it to Galligan a judge that ten times out of nine sides with the state. There is a scary music that intensifies on the background when he says it, to raise the attention and the concern of the subject viewer.
The two prosecutors, Mickey Joseph and Elizabeth Lederer make their way on an elevator. They look at each other the subject viewer feels like the battle is about to begin. The corridors of the court house are very dark and plain. The subject viewer is walking behind all the people also dressed in very plain and dark colours. It gives an impression to the viewer as if he was about to participate in a real court hearing. The entrance of all those people raises tension, the wall on the background is painted half white and half brown that reminds the viewer of the racial discrimination. This is not a fancy court room with marble columns and walls. Here everything just seems very serious, sombre and minimalistic. Yet the subject viewer is still shown enough to show this is an institution and powerhouse that will adjudicate on the boy’s future. During the entrance the same song is playing and the lyrics say “give me something wonderful” it is the voices of the five boys screaming and playing for justice to be made on this day.
Then the camera slowly starts floating from the entrance towards the judge that every lawyer sitting on the defendant’s side is petrified of. At first camera shot is very blurry to raise the suspense and tension of the subject viewer. Then the camera rises higher towards the ceiling to show the supremacy of the judge and that he is sitting higher than everyone present in this court hearing. Elizabeth Lederer from the plaintiff side starts to address the jury first, then the camera will have an extreme close shot of the defendants to emphasize emotions and stress that they are going through. During the court hearing “Ava wanted to make it a little bit chaotic, to see the action through the characters’ eyes. When they’re in the court, there are a few more cuts than normal and a quicker pace. She wanted to portray what they were feeling.” The openings statements of each lawyer (defence and prosecution) are spliced together so the viewer hears a summary of all the lawyers opening statements.
During this first trial of Yusef, Raymond and Antron, the shocking and terrifying photos of Trisha Meili are shown to the jury, to leave no doubt that the five boys are guilty. They subject viewer is placed in front of those horrific photos for more that 30 seconds to have a proper understanding of just how grave the case was.
The battle continues, and despite a weak entrance, Mr Burns from the defendants side, gives very strong arguments in regards to the racial discrimination and the force that was used by the police to get the statements out of the boys. He then finishes his speech saying that “there is still room for a reasonable doubt”. The camera shots zoom in the faces of the defendants and their family members to translate their emotions in this painful battle. During this trial episode “Ava had four or five cameras running because there were several reactions within the courtroom that were necessary to see”. During an interview the editing director Spencer Averick adds that “It was the legal team, the judge, the boys, the families, and the friends in the courtroom, so there were a lot of cameras on faces that we could cut to. It was a matter of cutting to right people. Seeing the action through the boys and the loved ones’ eyes created its own tone and tension, and it was a case of using reaction shots wisely to really show the emotion on people’s faces. If I cut to the wrong reaction, it could totally deflate the scene.”
Step two: by positioning, relationship, and perspective.
The moment that the plaintiff side invites Trisha Meili to the court room, everyone is in shock. The camera first films her lower part of the body to leave the suspense of how her face is after the attack. Is it the same as everyone just saw on the photos? She is slowly limping towards the judge. Even without seeing her face just yet the subject viewer is exposed in front of her hand that she holds in a very weird manner indicating her trauma and handicap. She is wearing a beautiful blue dress that separates her from all people in this court room. It is her day, she came to fight for her justice. The camera angle is zoomed in her face as she is talking very slowly. She has a double vision after her incident, so the camera view is lightly blurry trying to simulate her trauma vision. The subject viewer is left feeling sorry for the victim and left to feel retribution is needed. She then describes her day of the incident. A crucial question is asked by Elizabeth Lederer “Do you have any memory of whatsoever about what happened to you in the park on the April on April 19, 1989”. There is suspense. The music on the background represents the hope of the boys that she will remember something. But unfortunately for them the answer is “no, I do not”.
The FBI investigators were all white middle aged men and women. Due to the racial prejudices of the investigators the Black and Latino teens were the prime suspects in the assault. The language used to address the teens, in the movie allows the subject viewer to experience the dehumanization of the five boys as they are often compared to savage animals. The investigators did not have any concreate evidence in this case, no murder weapon, no traces of DNA or blood. The only lead they had was a statement from the boys where they confessed to the rape. The boys were coerced by the law enforcement. The subject viewer is left to wonder how justice can be done?
The boys were subject to a very brutal and inhumane interrogation. This part of the series allows the subject viewer to see the horror and the pain that the five innocent boys were taken through by the investigators. The investigators were trying to get video tapes of their confession. They were held and in small rooms, without food, water or a toilet break for many hours. Some of the boys did not sleep for more than two days before the FBI could get the video tapes out of them. The only one who did not make the video confession was Yusef Salaam, because his mother intervened during his brutal interrogation. The boys were convinced by the FBI agents that as long as they tell them what they want to hear, they could go home. The detectives use physical force and throw chairs around the room to scare the boys and get the confession out of them.
The camera shooting style in the interrogation room is very smoky and blurry to allow the subject viewer feel the fatigue and pain that the boys are going through. The close up focus with a little light directly at the boy’s faces allows the viewer to feel like it’s a real interrogation where in a dark room an agent flashes a lamp in your face, to hear you say the truth, what in this case is the lie they want them to confess to. After all the promises made by the police to the boys and their parents, they remained in custody before the trial, with some of them left on a bail. There is a scene in the drama where all the boys are placed together after the interrogation and they admit to one another that they lied about each other because that what the police wanted to hear.
The judge who everyone was petrified prior to trial can be characterized as invisible (Kramer v Kramer).The only parole he addresses is to Korey Wise “you are here to answer questions”. The subject viewer is already told he the judge always sides with the state. However the jury are the ones who make the decision if the five boys are guilty. The director then made us forget that they are present in the room by less focusing the camera on them to allow the subject viewer to be placed on their bench while the prosecutors address their speeches and present their evidence.
The defence lawyers seem very inexperienced, and far from taking up a case that big of a profile. One of them is divorce lawyer that has no record of criminal law. Another is a rights activist that works pro bono because the families do not have enough means to afford a lawyer. The only one who actually gives hope in the eyes of the viewer is Mickey Joseph a criminal defence lawyer for Legal Aid Society. The subject viewer is placed in a room where he is getting ready, nervous for the trial that is going to commence in a matter of hours. He raises a very good argument that although the boys admitted on tape to have committed the crime they had also maintained their innocence and denied the charges numerous times. This is what was needed to cast doubt on the confessions.
Closer to the end of the trial, and the delivery of the verdict, Elizabeth Lederer the appellant prosecutor is filmed from a very low angle that makes her character appear more threatening and dominant, demonstrating her advantage of winning the case in the subject viewers eyes. When the judge brings out the verdict that the five boys are guilty on all counts, most of the people sitting in the court room start crying. The camera does close shots of the family members and the defendants to better translate of how devastated they feel. The last seen of the trail episode shows how the youngest boy accused Antron McCray aged 14 is playing on the trumpet. He is sitting on a chair in the middle of the road with handcuff on his wrist. This scene demonstrates that he did not get the justice he deserved and his childhood dream of becoming a musician is ruined, he is screaming for help.
Step three: interpretive gridlock, the truth be told.
The subject viewer is shown there was no evidence linking the boys to the crime. The victim cannot identify the boys as perpetrators. There was no blood on any of the defendants clothing as expected in a rape case. There was a sock found at the scene of the crime with traces of semen. The sock with seamen could not be linked to the defendants. The police admitted that they could not place the boys in the park where the incident happened. There was no DNA from the boys on the victim i.e. under her fingernails as in rape cases.
The only evidence presented was the boys admitted to the attacked under interrogation, notwithstanding there denial of involvement many times. The boys were minors and interviewed with appropriate adult. The jury found the boys guilty and the subject viewer is left feeling the injustice in the system. Silbey says “As the law inevitably remains standing and in place at the film’s end – whether or not it achieved justice through its courtroom procedure – the trial film concludes by propagating a notion of the world already made, only waiting to be found, always occupied by a legal system, and only waiting to be organized by it.” The trail did not do justice. The objective of this film was to show the injustice that occurred. Ava DuVernay intention (indeed the film’s story is motivated by such claims) was to show that the laws authority and classificatory practice, and particularly how it keeps its promise of justice as truth alive has failed.
The boys were convicted for a crime they did not commit. The next episodes after the trail show how the boys served their sentences and the pain they had to ensue. It shows how when they were released they were sill imprisoned by the stigma of being sex offenders. The last episodes show the boys being exonerated. Although still through the judicial process we are not shown the courtroom in relation to the exoneration of the five boys, now referred to as the exonerated five. However a new court battle arises for wrongful imprisonment and 41 million dollar settlement. Silbey says: “It is a very rare film about the legal system (and certainly not a mainstream feature film) whose message is truth at all costs, even anarchy”.
The media coverage and influence and the effect on the trail
The attention of the media on the “Central Park Jogger” case was enormous. Donald J Trump has bought a full page of New York Times magazine to post an article encouraging introducing back the death penalty so that the five boys could be executed by a lethal injection. Donald J Trump said “Bring back the death penalty! Bring back our police! I want to hate these muggers and murderers. They should be forced to suffer and, when they kill, they should be executed for their crimes … civil liberties end when an attack on our safety begins!” The battle for justice of one lady, resulted in injustice for five school boys. The media involvement prejudiced the outcome of the trail. It called for retribution and punishment of the boys without giving them a fair investigation and therefore a fair trial. An interview, with a filmmaker DuVernay observed, “I think that it would be a tragedy if this story and the telling of it came down to one woman [Fairstein] being punished for what she did because it’s not about her. It’s not all about her. She is part of a system that’s not broken, it was built to be this way. It was built to oppress, it was built to control. ... It was built for profit. It was built for political gain and power.”
Conclusion
Silbey opines that within the genre of the trial film, there are two common outcomes the first is the trial process helps to uncover the truth and restores justice. The second is where the trial extends its authority (despite what the facts tell us) not “because the law is always right, but because it is always the law”. She suggests that the courts outcome is one which we stand by because law is based on a type of social contract as envisaged by Thomas Hobbes.[6] None of Silbey’s two conclusions fit with our film. This is a criticism that must be made of her analysis. With the rise of things like Netflix and Amazon we are seeing the rise of cheaper film making. Stories that would not have gained as much attention in the past are now being turned into courtroom dramas. The case of the Central Park Five is one of those stories. This type of case is outlining the injustice in the system and cases that are influenced by the media are coming now to the forefront. It is because of the injustice that this story is now being told. They do not fit correctly into Silbey model of trial film conclusions. It is the view of this paper that a third conclusion be included that deals with injustice type cases.
Footnotes
[1] Jessica, Silbey, “Patterns of courtroom justice”, [2001] Journal of Law and Society 28.1, 97-116
[2] Ibid., p.97
[3] Ibid., p.106
[4] Ibid., p.111
[5] Ibid., p.112
[6] Gaskin J.,C.,A., Leviathan, ed., With Introduction, (Oxford: OUP, 1999), p. 86-7 (First published 1651) cited in Rosen, Michael, & Wolff, Jonathan, Political Thought, (Oxford: OUP, 1999), p. 56
