SLIFF 2017 Interview: Christopher Scott – Subject of TRUE CONVICTION

TRUE CONVICTION screens Sunday, November 5th at 4:00pm at Washington University’s Brown Hall  (Forsyth Boulevard and Chaplin Drive – two blocks west of Skinker Boulevard) as part of this year’s St. Louis International Film Festival. In attendance will be the film’s subject Christopher Scott as well as Antoinette (Annie) Grier, project manager of Washington U.’s Smart Decarceration Initiative at the Center for Social Development of the George Warren Brown School of Social Work. This is a FREE event.

Christopher Scott was released from prison after serving 13 years of a life sentence for a murder he didn’t commit. That nightmare scenario is far too common: More than 30 people like Chris have been exonerated in Dallas County, Texas. Most of them are black men locked up in their youth who emerged in middle age looking for a way to make sense of what happened. One day, at a support-group meeting for exonerees, Chris has a light-bulb moment: Exonerees could become detectives, investigating the cases of other wrongfully convicted people and proving their innocence. TRUE CONVICTION follows Chris and his team — Steven Phillips and Johnnie Lindsey — as they work to both realize their dream of becoming detectives and try to understand their own unjust experiences. As the trio of newly minted investigators seek redemption, attempting to right the wrongs they experienced, Chris finds that his faith in changing the system is mightily challenged.

Christopher Scott took the time to answer some questions about TRUE CONVICTION for We Are Movie Geeks in advance of the screening at this year’s ST. Louis International Film Festival:

Interview conducted by Tom Stockman October 24th, 2017

Tom Stockman: When were you accused of murder and how old were you at the time?

Christopher Scott: It was a 1996. I was 26 years old then.

TS: And who were you? What were you doing?

CS: I was working full-time at the Tom Thumb supermarket as produce supervisor. I lived with my girlfriend at the time, and we were raising our two kids together when all of this happened.

TS: Why were you accused of this murder?

CS: It was a profiling case. There was a murder, and the police were looking for two African-American men, one short, and one tall and skinny. When they saw me and my codefendant get out of a car near the crime scene, but a time later, we pretty much matched that description. But when they described the clothing that the murder suspects had on, neither of us were wearing clothes that matched that description.

TS: Sounds like you were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

CS: That’s pretty much how everything happened.

TS: Were are you represented by a public defender?

CS: Yes, but he only came to see me one time when I was in jail.

TS: Did you go to trial? A bench trial or a jury trial?

CS: Yes, my capital murder trial went to a jury and the whole trial lasted about five hours.

TS: And you were convicted.

CS: Yes, I was convicted and give a Capital life sentence.

TS: And this was in the state of Texas.

CS: Yes, Dallas County Texas which leads the nation in exonerations.

TS: What was prison like?

CS: Prison was horrible. It’s nothing that you can prepare yourself for. Prison is not meant to rehabilitate you, it’s meant to dehumanize you and make you feel like you’re back in slavery. Slavery is not dead, it’s just hidden rather well within our prison system. I witnessed so much in prison. I witnessed men taking other men’s lives. I seen men having sexual relations with other men and I’ve seen men getting raped by other men. I’ve seen the really grotesque part of prison life because the unit I was in was a maximum security unit that housed 5000 inmates. Put 5000 men together and just imagine what kind of things could happen.

TS: What did you do to pass the time?

CS: With pretty much anything you do, you have to build a solid foundation, and even in prison I had to do that. When I first entered prison I weighed 135 pounds, so I was determined to get a job in the kitchen there. I wanted to eat more and gain weight. I also started to lift weights, I went to the gym every day. That would take up much of my day, and I also started reading books. I would read up to three books a week. Another thing I did a lot of in prison was watch soap operas.

TS: Did a lot of the prisoners enjoy soap operas?

CS: Well, in the unit that I was in, it was mandatory that we watch soap operas. Even before I went to prison, my brothers and cousins who had been there would always talk about watching The Young and the Restless in prison. At first I couldn’t imagine all of these hard man watching soap operas but then I spent 13 years watching them every day.

TS: When you got out of prison, did you continue to watch the soap operas?

CS: Yes, but now I can DVR them. That way when I travel, I won’t miss them.

TS: Sounds like you got hooked on them.

CS: I did, but I sometimes watched them as a kid with my mom and my aunts.

TS: Let’s talk about this man who really committed the murder that you were convicted of. When did you first hear the name Alonzo Hardy? 

CS: Probably the second day I was in jail. I knew of him before because my girlfriend’s family new Alonzo Hardy. They had gone to school with him. I had seen him around the neighborhood. The day after I went to prison, I got a visit from my girlfriend and she said that she had heard that Alonzo had committed the crime. I told her we needed to find him and the other guy that did it, but we never did find Alonzo’s accomplice. Eventually Alonzo confessed to the crime.

TS: How long were you in prison before you confessed?

CS: He confessed twice. His first confession was after I had been in prison maybe five years. He confessed in 2002, but they didn’t let me out of prison until 2009. Alonzo at first confessed to my brother, who was later incarcerated with him. But before that, my brother was working at a barbershop and Alonzo came into that shop talking about the case and my brother told him that his little brother was locked up for that crime. Alonzo knew who I was because I was working at the Tom Thumb that was there in that community. Alonzo filed an affidavit with the District Attorney’s office, but the District Attorney at the time was so racist that he just didn’t want to hear about it, so that was pretty much the end of that. In 2006, we got the first African-American district attorney in the state of Texas, Craig Watkins. He made a lot of changes.

TS: I assume Alonzo Hardy is in prison now, correct?

CS: Yes, he is serving a 55 year term.

TS: For the murder that you were convicted of?

CS: No, they never gave him any time for that murder. He’s in prison for an aggravated robbery case.

Christopher Scott with the real killer Alonzo Hardy

TS: So you got out of prison in 2009 and started the House of Renewed Hope to help other prisoners wrongly convicted. How did you get the idea to start that organization?

CS: I formulated the idea in prison because I had seen so many men that look like me saying the same thing, that they were falsely imprisoned. There were just so many of us saying the same thing. I began holding meetings in prison to talk about what we could do to help free the chains of the wrongly convicted. We all agreed that it was something that we needed to take to the state capital and try to get the laws changed. We can’t just sit here in prison for something we didn’t do. We needed the word to get out, we needed a voice for those who can’t be heard. I just happened to be the first one that got out and ever since I’ve made sure that our voices are heard.

TS: How many cases have you worked on since you were released?

CS:  Six or seven. It takes time. We had a really good case last year. We got a guy out after being in prison for 41 years.

TS: How do you decide which cases to work on? I’m sure you get a lot of request for help.

CS: We just look at the cases and decide which ones have the most merit. We read the cases we read the letters and then we decide which ones we think we have a strong case with. We have to present things to the appeals court, and there are so many other things that have to fall in place, like undiscovered evidence, enough to retry a case. It’s not easy. I’ve looked at probably 4000 cases and out of those, there have only been six or seven that have had enough merit to get back into the court system in the hopes that there can be an exoneration or just maybe getting the case reopened again.

TS: Do you find the police and the legal system in general more cooperative than you expected or less cooperative?

CS: I just think they are less cooperative because they don’t want to own up to the fact that they have made mistakes. It’s up to us to try to change that from the start. We have to try to explain to them that the injustice that they did has changed and ruined people’s lives. They need to take into consideration that when they do their jobs wrong, people’s lives can be destroyed. We go and talk to police cadets first because these young officers need to know how to deal with certain individuals. A lot of younger white cops have never dealt with urban communities before. We try to help educate them about how to approach a person. We teach them that if they approach a person with aggression, they’re going to get aggression in return. I’ve been on a prosecutor panel, where there are hundreds of prosecutors in a room, and I’ve had to talk to them and get my point across because there are good prosecutors and bad prosecutors. But I think the bad ones outweigh the good ones but a substantial amount.

TS: Let’s talk about this film TRUE CONVICTION. How did you hook up with this filmmaker Jamie Metzler?

CS: The House of Renewed Hope group would get together and have discussions about changing legislation and the personal things that are going on in our lives. The only ones that can relate to an overturned conviction are the guys that actually went through it. It’s a brotherhood. At one of our meetings, a journalist named Michael May attended. He writes for The Texas Observer. He heard about what I was doing and told me that he had a friend that was a film producer. Jamie Metzler wanted to come down to Texas and meet with us. He brought his camera down and filmed us. Michael May and I had already been doing some video broadcast on NPR and the film producer liked what he saw. We entered into a partnership, signed some agreements, and made this documentary. That’s how it all began.

TS: Are you happy with the final film?

CS:  I love it. It’s been getting some great reviews. We premiered it at the Tribeca Film Festival and we have a lot more film festivals lined up to show it. It one ‘Best Documentary’ here at a festival in Dallas, so I think it’s getting the press that it needs. PBS bought it so it will be airing there next year, so it will be getting a lot more coverage.

TS: Do you enjoy traveling to different cities to these film Festivals?

CS: I love it because it gives me the opportunity to spread the information about the wrongly convicted. A lot of people don’t know about this subject. It’s a subject that doesn’t hit home to so many and it’s something they’ve never paid attention to. When you spread the word, more people may get involved because you never know who is in that crowd, or who is in that audience that can make a difference. I love traveling and telling people about wrongful conviction.

TS: What’s your relationship with your children like now?

CS: It’s great. We have a good relationship. I have two grandchildren now, a grandson and a granddaughter. Everything is great right now.

TS: Good. I’m sorry you had to go through such an ordeal but I’m glad you’re channeling your experience towards such a worthy cause. Good luck with the film and with your organization and I hope you enjoy your visit to St. Louis for the film festival.

CS: Thank you. I’ll see you in St. Louis