“The Trials of Darryl Hunt”

Throughout Darryl Hunt’s 20-year incarceration for a wrongful conviction for rape and murder, he remained stoic in the face of numerous setbacks.

Above, Darryl Hunt in a photo taken about the time of his arrest, as shown in the documentary. Below, Hunt reacts to his permanent release.

As seen in the documentary “The Trials of Darryl Hunt,” screened at USC Law Oct. 16, Hunt did not pity himself when appeals were rejected; he twice turned down plea bargains that would have freed him from prison; and he continued his pursuit of justice, even as his faith in the system waned.

Mark Rabil, who served as Hunt’s defense attorney from 1984 until Hunt was freed from prison in 2004, attended the screening and afterward answered questions from the audience of students, alumni, faculty and community members.

“Darryl Hunt is exactly what you see in the film,” said Rabil, assistant capital defender in North Carolina. “He’s very charismatic, very low-key, and he truly is not angry about this situation.”

Using news clips, newspaper headlines, courtroom footage and numerous interviews, filmmakers Ricki Stern and Annie Sundberg chronicled the district attorney’s pursuit of the case against Hunt.

Hunt, an African American, was accused in the rape and murder of 25-year-old Deborah Sykes, a white woman, in Winston-Salem, N.C.  Despite a lack of physical evidence, an anonymous 9-1-1 call, questionable eye-witnesses, and a prosecution witness who changed nearly all of her testimony, the prosecutor secured a conviction from an all-white jury.

Hunt resigned himself to serving a life sentence he didn’t deserve.

“(My lawyers), they (were) trying to prepare me for the next stage … but for me, it didn’t matter,” Hunt said in the film. “You already took my life when you convicted me of something I didn’t do.”

The verdict sparked protests, and Hunt’s lawyers appealed and sought a new trial. After serving five years in prison, Hunt was offered a plea bargain: Plead guilty to second-degree murder, and he’d be released on time already served. Contrary to Rabil’s recommendation, Hunt turned down the offer.

“I couldn’t accept it, and I was just hoping that (my friends and family) would understand – knowing who I am and what kind of person I am – that I couldn’t plead guilty to something I didn’t do,” Hunt would say years later.

In 1993, several years after his second trial, DNA obtained from the crime scene was finally tested and found not to be a match to Hunt. Still, he was not released or granted a new trial because the judge declared that the DNA evidence would not have affected the guilty verdict.

Mark Rabil, Hunt's attorney, speaks to the audience with Katie Brown, producer. Rabil also spoke to Professor Dan Simon's wrongful convictions class, which is studying Hunt's case.

In 2003, Hunt’s fight for freedom reached a turning point when the Winston-Salem Journal published an eight-part investigative series on his case. At the same time, Rabil had the DNA evidence compared to known samples. It was matched to Willard  Brown, who quickly confessed to committing the crime alone.

“I always said I was innocent, and the question was, was somebody listening?” Hunt told reporters outside court after a judge dismissed the charges against him in February 2004. “Today confirmed somebody was listening.”

Hunt was scheduled to attend the USC Law screening but had a family emergency, according to Rabil. The film, which premiered at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival and has received 13 Best Documentary and Audience Awards at film festivals, is set to air on HBO in April 2007.

The screening event was presented by the Student Bar Association, the Review of Law and Social Justice and ZdC, a graduate student group of the USC School of Cinematic Arts, in association with Cinematheque108, an alternative screening series.

For more information, visit www.breakthrufilms.org.