(52 minutes, 2001)
With appearance by filmmaker, Fabrice Ziolkowski
Monday, March 3 / 7:00 P.M. / Free
UCSB Buchanan Hall 1910
Part of the Executing Justice Lecture Series

"I just found out that they've fixed August 28th as an execution date for
me. That's in six weeks. The attorney was down to tell me about it as
nothing has come through the mail"

David Hicks, Death Row Inmate, Featured in Death Letters

On Monday, March 3,Fabrice Ziolkowski, a Paris-based French-American filmmaker will introduce "Death Letters", a 52 minute documentary on the death penalty as it is applied in Texas, where more than 200 men and women have been executed since 1982. Based on the testimony of death row inmates, lawyers, sociologists, historians, victims' families, prison wardens, and representatives for the state legislsature and the Attorney-General's office, the film examines the major arguments for and against capital punishment. At the center of the film is an interview with David Hicks, a death row inmate at Ellis One Penitentiary who was convicted in 1988 of the rape and murder of his grandmother. Excerpts from Hicks's diary, the "death letters' referred to in the title, run throughout the film providing a vivid first-hand account of life on death row.

"Since I've been here, I've had three execution dates. The last one was stopped about six hours before execution. I wonder if this one will be the last..."

Produced for French TV in 2001, and subsequently aired in 12 countries around the world, "Death Letters" has yet to be screened in the United States.

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