may ultimately lead nowhere.” In the film, there is enormous resistance to the effort of the filmmakers and the team of lawyers and activists they work with. It’s as if the system doesn’t want to admit a mistake could have been made, even if that means letting an innocent man stay in prison. “Why,” I write to Melinek, “wouldn’t the system want to make sure the people in jail really belong there?” “It isn’t the judicial system that is the problem,” Melinek writes back. “It’s [certain] individuals within it. There are prosecutors who are promoted and evaluated based on their conviction rate, not on the fairness of the convictions. There are police detectives who are pressured to close cases and meet performance measures for arrests and citations. In Working Stiff, I describe cases in which police officers tried to mislead me about the circumstances of a case—or even refused to investigate a death—in an effort to get me to change what I would write on the death certificate. “These are the outliers,” she adds. “In almost all of the homicide cases I’ve worked on, I found the police to be professional, ethical and motivated. But it’s the outliers that color our perception of the criminal justice system as unfair and biased—especially when they succeed in bringing about results, like David’s con-
SAN RAFAEL
RARE COIN
viction, that really are unfair and biased.” Thinking about the central friendship of the movie, I wonder at the relative unlikeliness of a lifelong inmate like McCallum becoming such an inspiration to a young man with little or no experience of the justice system. “Would you,” I write, “ever become friends with someone like that—someone accused or convicted of a horrifying crime?” “I HAVE become friends with exactly that sort of stranger!” Melinek responds. “Through my work for the Innocence Project, I have met several wrongfully convicted exonerees who are now free men. They are all incredibly inspiring and resilient people. “Wrongfully convicted or rightly so— people in prison are still people,” she says. “Not all of them have family members or friends who are willing to stand by them throughout the years of their incarceration. But having a connection to people in the outside world is important for prisoners’ mental health, and helps them integrate back into society when they are released. Melinek then writes, “Information about helping convicts in California reintegrate can be found at http://ca-reentry. org.” “So, what part of the film stood out for you the most?”
“My only critique of the film is that it focuses on the search for witnesses and not on the forensic science,” she writes back. “I would have liked to know more about the autopsy findings and the other physical evidence in the case, in addition to the DNA. In many cases when the police get a confession, they stop investigating a case. “But, as the film points out, if the confession is coerced then the physical evidence and eyewitness testimony become essential for exonerating the wrongfully convicted, and for catching the real perpetrator. We have to know what this evidence consists of, and the film doesn’t really explore that aspect of this investigation.” As our exchange comes to an end, I ask one last question. “What,” I ask, “would you like people to take away from the film?” Melink’s response, appropriate for a person as busy as she, is both succinct and practical. “Open your mind to what you can do to help others,” she says. “Using your skills to help people in need changes you, irreversibly—and for the better.” Y
Forensic pathologist Dr. Judy Melinek will be the guest of honor at the March 16 screening of ‘David & Me’.
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