At the Death House Door Review
By David Kempler
Killing the Truth
Oscar has short-listed the nominations for Best Documentary Feature for 2008 and "At the Death House Door" is one of the nominees. It is co-directed by Peter Gilbert and Steve James, who also collaboratively brought us the much celebrated "Hoop Dreams".
This time they have combined their talents to bring us the story of Pastor Caroll Pickett, a man who served for 15 years as the death house chaplain to the infamous "Walls" prison unit in Huntsville, Texas. During this time, he presided over 95 executions, including the world's first lethal injection. For 6 or so hours before each execution he would spend time with these people who were about to be killed and just spoke with and listened to them. For some reason, after each execution, Pickett recorded an audiotape account of his trip to the death chamber and stored these tapes without telling a soul, including his wife and children.
After initially appearing to be just a series of recollections from Pastor Pickett, the film veers off into the very specific story of one of the men he led to his execution, Carlos De Luna. Mr. De Luna, was convicted of murdering a clerk in a store and sentenced to death. Two reporters from a Chicago newspaper investigated the circumstances surrounding the De Luna case and have quite effectively proven that his conviction and execution were wrongful. Pastor Pickett always believed him innocent, or at least that is what he now claims. In any case it has turned him from his strong belief in the death penalty to a crusader against the death penalty.
Along the way we learn that the prosecution in the original case committed a crime because they lied about the evidence and about knowing who might really be the killer. Yet, "At the Death House Door" completely ignores this part of the story, a crime unto itself that undermines the entire production.
After I attended a screening, the floor was thrown open for questions for the filmmaker, Steve James. Oddly, I had the only question and I wanted to know why no mention of prosecutorial criminality was addressed in the film after it was mentioned in a one sentence statement in the middle of the production. His answer was a non-answer so I asked him again in private afterwards. He told me that he could not address the issue because the film was made with the assistance of the prosecution and this handcuffed him.
I suppose that rather than lose his film he felt the need to compromise the subject. His answer left me a little less respectful of the documentary process but I suppose that it is sometimes better to not know what is going on in the background. It's a decent film but it could have been more if only it was a little gutsier.
