Netflix's THE INNOCENCE FILES Exposes a Flawed Criminal Justice System
The United States has one of the world’s largest populations of incarcerated people, including some who were put behind bars due to faulty evidence or racial prejudice in a gross miscarriage of justice.
Netflix’s THE INNOCENCE FILES shines a light on the untold personal stories behind eight cases of wrongful conviction that the nonprofit organization the Innocence Project and organizations within the Innocence Network have uncovered and worked tirelessly to overturn. The nine-episode series is composed of three compelling parts - The Evidence, The Witness and The Prosecution. These stories expose difficult truths about the state of America’s deeply flawed criminal justice system, while showing when the innocent are convicted, it is not just one life that is irreparably damaged forever: families, victims of crime and trust in the system are also broken in the process. THE INNOCENCE FILES is executive produced and directed by Woodstock Film Festival alumni and friends Academy Award ® nominee Liz Garbus, Academy Award ® winner Alex Gibney, Academy Award ® winner Roger Ross Williams; with episodes also directed by Academy Award ® nominee Jed Rothstein, Emmy Award ® winner Andy Grieve and Sarah Dowland.
"It’s one thing to know about injustice. It’s another to see it in person. Sitting in the living room of a wrongfully convicted man and his family… learning how all of their lives have been affected… was a profoundly disturbing experience for me; particularly when so many of the people affected are poor and black,” Roger Ross Williams told WFF’s executive director Meira Blaustein. “My films tend to be about underdogs of one kind or another. There are no greater underdogs than the wrongfully convicted. My hope is that viewers will remember the cases in this series the next time they sit on a jury[,] will remember not to be dazzled by faulty science, will remember the potential perils of eyewitness misidentification, will remember the consequences of what might happen if an overzealous prosecutor loses his/her way.”
THE INNOCENCE FILES is now streaming on Netflix.