Soros Justice Fellowships
Soros Justice FellowshipsApplication Guidelines | Grantee List
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Annie Sundberg and Rickie Stern
2005 Sundberg and Stern will complete and distribute the documentary film The Trials of Darryl Hunt. In 1993, inspired by claims of injustice and police conspiracy, filmmakers Sundberg and Stern traveled to North Carolina to begin documenting this haunting case. The film melds the visceral reality of a murder case with first-person accounts and cinematic imagery, challenging the assumption that all Americans have the right to unbiased justice. Hunt’s story—while one man’s personal journey—reflects systemic issues of national concern: cross-racial eyewitness identification, prosecutorial misconduct, inexperienced defense attorneys assigned to capital cases, racial bias in death penalty cases, and errors in police procedure. By bringing Hunt’s harrowing experience to a wide national audience, the film has the potential to encourage social and policy changes across the U.S., as evidenced by the Supreme Court of North Carolina’s 2002 establishment of the Actual Innocence Commission in response to highly publicized wrongful convictions, becoming the first state to do so. New York, NY | |
