Films: The Trials of Darryl Hunt

The Impact of The Trials of Darryl Hunt:

Hunt’s case has led to statewise reforms

• The Chief Justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court refers to Darryl Hunt as "the poster child for misidentification" cases and uses his case as an example of why an Innocence Review Commission is needed in the state.


• In 2004, North Carolina senate passed moratorium legislation that included a twoyear halt of executions and review of the state’s death penalty system. The Speaker of the House has appointed a 15 member study commission to review the fairness of the death penalty to ensure that no innocent person is sentenced to death in North Carolina.


• The North Carolina legislature passed a law in 2004 that requires prosecutors to turn over copies of all law enforcement files. In Darryl’s case, 2,700 pages were withheld.


• The North Carolina Actual Innocence Commission has recommended changes regarding eyewitness ID procedures and videotaping of suspects, and is currently reviewing improvements to state crime laboratories.

• Darryl Hunt is the 142nd exonerated person in the United States. As of December 21, 2005, 168 men & women have been found wrongfully convicted and freed from incarceration. (Innocence Project)

• In December 2005, North Carolina was home to the 1,000th person put to death in the US states since capital punishment resumed in 1977. (Brenda Goodman, New York Times, December 3, 2005.)


• For every six people on death row, one person has been found innocent and been exonerated. ( North Carolina Coalition for Moratorium)

• A comprehensive study on the death penalty in North Carolina found that the odds of receiving a death sentence rose by 3.5 times among those defendants whose victims were white. (Prof. Jack Boger and Dr. Isaac Unah, University of North Carolina, 2001)


• 96% of the states that have reviewed race and the death penalty found a pattern of race discrimination – either in race-of-victim or race-of-defendant discrimination, or both. (Prof. David Baldus report to the ABA, 1998)

• 76.69% of post conviction DNA exonerations in the United States involve mistaken eyewitness identification. (Innocence Project, 2004)


• In controlled studies of people’s abilities to identify a previously viewed face, people are approximately 50% more likely to mistakenly identify a face if it was cross-racial than if it was a person of their own race. (Professor Gary L . Wells, Iowa State University)

• About 90% of people facing capital charges cannot afford their own attorney. (Center for Death Penalty Litigation, Durham, NC)


• Each post-conviction appeal costs an average of $20,000 if done by a public defender, but upwards of $50,000 if done by a paid attorney.

• $358,545.00 compensation from the state of North Carolina.


• $517,006 to supervise close custody in North Carolina State Prison for 19 years.


• $64, 000 total for Hunt’s two trials ("The Racialization and Privatization of American Prisons" by Earl Smith and Angela Hattery. 2005)


• 5 lawyers & 3 private investigators spent 15,000 hours from 1984- 2004, with value of over $2.5 million for which the government paid less than $100,000. ("The Racialization and Privatization of American Prisons" by Earl Smith and Angela Hattery. 2005)