(nb: no music on cleanfeed, music notes for guidance only)
(MUSIC UP)
Upsot @ 0'18" DICK ADAMS, Victims Rights Campaigner
"I think it's an affront to society...I don't think they should have access to it period."
Upsot @ 0'27" BETSY WOLFENDEN, Mediator, Restitution.inc
"The internet is the great equaliser...what this site does, is give inmates a voice, a voice
that they did not previously have."
Upsot @ 0'40" HARVEY GREEN "My name is Harvey Green - to most and probably all of you that means nothing, but to the State of North Ccarolina it means that I'm a murderer, a killer and a menace to society, a man without hope or any redeemable qualities. I must confess that I have killed two people but I am not as the state of North Carolina makes me out to be."
(FADE OUT)
v/o:
Harvey Green was 39 years old. In 1983 he beat two people to death in a botched robbery. On Friday September 24th, he was executed - by lethal
injection - the 74th person to be put to death in America this year.
But that will NOT be the last of Harvey Green.
Door slams @ 1' 13" - pause.
v/o:
He also had an internet web site - filled with apologies and paintings created whist waiting 16 years on death row.
Upsot @ 1'22 - HARVEY GREEN "Most people are under the misconception that a death row inmate is all evil, and doesn't have anything to lose or care for, but it isn't so. I feel and care for every man, person and woman in this world, and I'm truly sorry that it took this to fully open my eyes and heart"
v/o @ 1'41"
The protests surrounding Green's web site say much about America's fear of the
internet and it's untested power. For while some politicians want the internet site shut down, we got a TV interview with Green last week.
Upsot @ 1'53 HARVEY GREEN;
"I'm telling them point blank, I'm sorry for my crime, I didn't mean for it to happen. Once you get yourself out there within the public knowledge, you can tell people you're story but it's up to them to follow up on that, to say hold up let me understand this man, where
he's coming from, let me read is story, then they have the opportunity to
write to you and ask you about that, and it get the word out."
v/o @ 2'30"
Harvey Green's message IS reaching the outside - and that's because he had
some help. A North Carolina pressure group called RESTITUTION - which wants an end to the death penalty, set up his web site, as death row prisoners don't have access to computers.
They say it's all about giving a voice to the hundreds of death row inmates
expelled from mainstream society.
Upsot @ 2' 51": BETSY WOLFENDEN
"They are hated, abhorred, they're told that what they have done has made them absolutely so valueless that I guess the kindest thing we could do is kill them, as quickly as we possibly
can...when I look at my website I see I can show the world that they may have been broken once but look at what they can do, they can be healed."
V/o @ 3'22" (MUSIC, FADE-UP)
So is this all a touching example of American democracy in action - or more
a case of free expression gone mad? After all, everyone from Presidents to call girls have their own internet page these days. But murderers are surely different. North Carolina Republicans want to BAN Harvey Greens site and deny him the right to free expression. They say killers forfeit their rights once they take someone else's.
Upsot @ 3'48" Representative Eddins:
"As far as I'm concerned when they have murdered someone they have lost their rights. And I think the public certainly feels that when these people have been convicted that they're locked up in cells and the key is thrown away, that they will never hear from these people again and the internet through technology today provides them with an opportunity to have their last say another say on the crime or
on the murder."
(MUSIC FADE
Upsot @ 4'17" DICK ADAMS, Victims Rights Campaigner. "I think it is an
insult to the law abiding citizens of this state and this country. I think
the only contact that he should have or they should have, or any individual
on death row should have is with his immediate family and the clergy maybe."
V/o @ 4' 40 (MUSIC FADE-UP)
But then there are those who believe the death penalty degrades America and
its claim to be a civilized nation.
Free expression - even when produced electronically - is guaranteed by the
American constitution.
And if that's the case , then a judicial system which takes, life must first
give justice.
Upsot @ 5' 04" -5'06" PROFESSOR DAN POLLITT/UNIVERSiTY OF NORTH CAROLINA.
V/o @ 5'07" (MUSIC FADE DOWN)
Dan Pollitt taught law at the University of North Carolina, he wrote a letter to the Governor, a former pupil of his, to ask him to grant Harvey Green clemency and to allow him access to the internet.
Upsot @ 5'18" PROFESSOR POLLITT "Whatever the prisoners like to do, there's somebody who wants to deprive them of that and I think that it's part of this don't let the prisoners communicate...maybe we feel ashamed of it and want put it in a dark room where nobody can see it."
Upsot @ 5'38" REPRESENTATIVE EDDINS ; "There's a lot of questions that the internet has brought to us that we don't have the answers for and I think the court system and it will probably be in the Supreme Court of the United States before it's over............I think it's on the leading edge of what's going to spread across other states because I'm sure that organisations like the Victims Assistance Network will pick this up and spread it across the country and even across the world for that matter."
Upsot @ 6'23" BETSY WOLFENDEN ; "I think that what's scary for a lot of politicians or for people in general, certainly people that support the death penalty in this country is that it does not serve their purpose at all if the rest of the world knows what kind of people we are killing."
Upsot @ 6'40: HARVEY GREEN ; "Hey, there it is..."
v/o @ 6'43"
Like hundreds of other inmates technology gave Harvey Green a voice beyond death row. This was the first time he'd seen his web site.
Upsot @ 6'53" HARVEY GREEN
"They can say can ban us but we ain't got no computers, we can't even use the phone, but every man has a right to access information, they access our information, they can type in the prison website and read all about us, why not put our website on the internet and let them type into what we've got to say."
V/o @ 7'18"
As there was no last minute change of heart, Harvey Green received three deadly chemical injections. The state Governor never granted clemency. His death was announced on the internet a few minutes later.
Ends on door slam @ 7'34".
Rushes:
@ 7''41"
Pull out from Harvey Green with sot:
"My name is Harvey Green, to the state of North Carolina that means I'm a
murderer, a killer and a menace to society."
@ 7'57"
Death Row Internet sites.
@ 8' 43"
Shots of North Carolina countryside.
Ends @ 9'26"