New Dallas TV series Dallas DNA - Will this have an impact on other cities?....should it?
The series examines cold cases in Dallas County that have been re-opened by a special unit that uses DNA evidence. When the cases were originally tried—some 20 or 30 years ago—DNA evidence was either ignored, botched or not used for a variety of reasons.
The hooks for the series include the special DNA unit itself, called a Conviction Integrity Unit, organized by new District Attorney Craig Watkins, who’s also Dallas’ first African-American D.A. The other hooks? Some people have been wrongfully sitting in jail for decades.
It’s generally a defense lawyer or a special group, like the Innocence Project, that leads re-examinations of cold cases. Here it’s the D.A.’s office. As such, Dallas County has had more people exonerated after wrongful convictions than any jurisdiction in the country since Texas law began allowing post-conviction DNA evidence analysis in 2001. Some 19 cases have been found to have had wrongful convictions; nearly 50% of the cases re-examined by Watkins’ office.
There are many ways the ID team could have handled these stories. (You could almost have excused ID for sensationalizing the tales of people wrongly sitting in jail for decades.) The cases could have been examined in great depth. When a case turned out to be a wrongful conviction, the series could have looked into the reasons why the system failed. It could have spent time on the years the prisoner had lost.
Based on the pilot ep, ID has chosen a middle ground that serves it well. The pilot’s tone is relatively dispassionate. It doesn’t sensationalize or preach, it reports, in pretty thorough detail. In the opener we follow the cases of two men who claim they were wrongly convicted. One has been in jail for 26 years, the other 13 years. When their cases are re-examined one is freed, the other is not. The freed prisoner’s re-entry to civilian life is covered, again more factually than emotionally. That’s a plus here. ID lets the emotion of the situation speak for itself.
Perhaps the best part of the episode, besides the fascinating storyline, is the access the filmmakers have been given. We sit in on the interviews between the prisoners and their lawyer. Interviews with all involved
Members of the Dallas County D.A.'s office are the cast of Investigation Discovery's Dallas DNA.
are plentiful. When the cases go to court again, cameras are there. We hear dialogue between the judges and the prisoners. When a prisoner is freed, we are there. When a prisoner who doesn’t go free limps back to jail, shackled, it’s a scene so powerful that words aren’t appropriate. The man is returning to jail for life. Appropriately, ID’s cameras record the scene silently. That silence is some of the most powerful television we’ve seen.
The hooks for the series include the special DNA unit itself, called a Conviction Integrity Unit, organized by new District Attorney Craig Watkins, who’s also Dallas’ first African-American D.A. The other hooks? Some people have been wrongfully sitting in jail for decades.
It’s generally a defense lawyer or a special group, like the Innocence Project, that leads re-examinations of cold cases. Here it’s the D.A.’s office. As such, Dallas County has had more people exonerated after wrongful convictions than any jurisdiction in the country since Texas law began allowing post-conviction DNA evidence analysis in 2001. Some 19 cases have been found to have had wrongful convictions; nearly 50% of the cases re-examined by Watkins’ office.
There are many ways the ID team could have handled these stories. (You could almost have excused ID for sensationalizing the tales of people wrongly sitting in jail for decades.) The cases could have been examined in great depth. When a case turned out to be a wrongful conviction, the series could have looked into the reasons why the system failed. It could have spent time on the years the prisoner had lost.
Based on the pilot ep, ID has chosen a middle ground that serves it well. The pilot’s tone is relatively dispassionate. It doesn’t sensationalize or preach, it reports, in pretty thorough detail. In the opener we follow the cases of two men who claim they were wrongly convicted. One has been in jail for 26 years, the other 13 years. When their cases are re-examined one is freed, the other is not. The freed prisoner’s re-entry to civilian life is covered, again more factually than emotionally. That’s a plus here. ID lets the emotion of the situation speak for itself.
Perhaps the best part of the episode, besides the fascinating storyline, is the access the filmmakers have been given. We sit in on the interviews between the prisoners and their lawyer. Interviews with all involved
Members of the Dallas County D.A.'s office are the cast of Investigation Discovery's Dallas DNA.
are plentiful. When the cases go to court again, cameras are there. We hear dialogue between the judges and the prisoners. When a prisoner is freed, we are there. When a prisoner who doesn’t go free limps back to jail, shackled, it’s a scene so powerful that words aren’t appropriate. The man is returning to jail for life. Appropriately, ID’s cameras record the scene silently. That silence is some of the most powerful television we’ve seen.
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