Presumed Guilty

Presumed Guilty
Directed by	Roberto Hernández and Geoffrey Smith
Produced by	Layda Negrete, Roberto Hernández, Martha Sosa, Yissel Ibarra
Starring	Antonio Zúñiga Eva Gutiérrez Rafaél Ramirez Heredia
Editing by	Felipe Gomez Roberto Hernández
Studio	Lawyers with Camera; Instituto Mexicano de Cinematografía CONACULTA; Fondo para la producción cinematográfica (FOPROCINE)
Distributed by	Cinépolis (in Mexico)
Release date(s)	18 de Febrero de 2011
Running time	87 minutes
Country	Mexico
Language	Spanish

Presumed Guilty (Spanish title: Presunto Culpable) shows the attempt by two young Mexican attorneys to exonerate a wrongly convicted man by making a documentary. In the process, they expose a judicial system that presumes suspects guilty until proven innocent.

Synopsis

Two lawyers struggle to free a man, Antonio Zúñiga, who has been wrongly convicted by the Mexican judicial system. Zúñiga was arrested on charges of murder and convicted largely on the testimony of one man. However, the man was a close relative of the victim who had no firm evidence against Zúñiga, while the accused produced several witnesses able to place him far from the scene of the crime at the time of the murder. Despite this, Zúñiga was found guilty, and when lawyers Roberto Hernández and Layda Negrete learned about his case, they agreed to help him. After it was revealed that the lawyer appointed to represent Zúñiga did not have a valid license to practice law, authorities grudgingly agreed to a new trial, but with the same judge presiding. This judge showed little interest in evidence that Zúñiga was falsely convicted. Battling an arrogant judge, uncooperative witnesses and a legal system riddled with corruption, Hernández and Negrete found that it was easy to prove Zúñiga's innocence, but hard to get the authorities to acknowledge this fact. Presumed Guilty was a selection at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival.

The story of Presumed Guilty was made into an episode of the TV series "P.O.V." that aired on 27 July 2010.

Cast

• José Antonio Zúñiga Rodríguez (Antonio Zúñiga, the wrongly convicted man) as himself
• Eva Gutiérrez (wife of Antonio Zúñiga) as herself
• Rafaél Ramirez Heredia (Zuñiga's defense lawyer) as himself
• Roberto Hernández (filmmaker/lawyer) as himself
• Layda Negrete (filmmaker/lawyer) as herself
• Hector Palomares (the judge) as himself
• Maricela Guzman (the prosecutor) as herself
• Victor Daniel Reyes (witness for the prosecution) as himself
• Jose Manuel Ortega Saavedra (Detective) as himself

Production

The film was produced chiefly by Roberto Hernández and Layda Negrete. Hernández and Negrete (LL.M. 1996, M.P.P. 1998) are candidates for PhDs in Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley. They are married and have a five-year-old daughter.

Awards and honors

Presumed Guilty has received numerous awards and honors, including the following:

• One World Media (London, 2010) - Best Feature Documentary
• Documenta Madrid (2010) - Best Documentary Award and Audience Award^[1]
• East End Film Festival (London, 2010) - Best Feature Documentary
• Los Angeles Film Festival (2010) - Audience Award and Best International Feature
• Human Rights Watch Film Festival (New York, 2010) - Closing Night Film^[2]
• Human Rights Watch Film Festival] (Toronto, 2010) - Closing Night Film^[3]
• San Francisco International Film Festival (2010) - Golden Gate Best Bay Area Documentary
• Guadalajara International Film Festival (2010) - Best Documentary
• Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival (2009) - Amnesty International Award
• Morelia International Film Festival] (2010) - Best Documentary^[4]
• Belfast Film Festival (2009) - Maysles Brothers Documentary Award
• News & Documentary Emmy Awards (2011) - Emmy for Outstanding Investigative Journalism – Long Form^[5][6]

Mexican exhibition and banning

Cinépolis announced that Presumed Guilty would premiere in its movie theaters in Mexico on February 18, 2011.

On March 2, 2011, a Mexican Federal Judge ordered that the exhibition and distribution of the documentary be suspended, on the basis that the main witness for the prosecution had filed an "amparo" for moral damage. The Cinépolis theater chain complied and suspended screenings of the film.

The suspension order was then revoked on March 9, 2011 by a higher court based on Article 6 of the Mexican Constitution which protects the right to free expression. By then, the movie had been widely distributed by street vendors as well as on YouTube.

See also

• Presumption of innocence
• Law enforcement in Mexico
• Mexico City law enforcement
• Crime in Mexico -- corruption
• Federal District Police -- the police of Mexico City
• Attorney General of Mexico

References

External links

• Official site (English)
• Official site (Spanish)
• Presumed Guilty at the Internet Movie Database
• Presumption of Guilt -- Wall Street Journal article
• 'Presumed Guilty' sheds light on failures of Mexico's justice system -- Los Angeles Times article
• 'Presumed Guilty': Kafkaesque tale of injustice -- San Francisco Chronicle article
• Presumed Guilty: Based on an Untrue Story -- Berkeley Review of Latin American Studies article
• Imprisoned In Mexico And 'Presumed Guilty' -- NPR article
• PBS article on the film and P.O.V. television episode
• Presumptions of Guilt: Documentary Spurs Hope for Judicial Reform in Mexico -- article in The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation Newsletter
• Two lawyers with cameras help rehabilitate Mexican 'justice', by Cathy Cockrell (1 December 2008)
• Dos abogados Mexicanos, con sus cámaras, ayudan a reformar el sistema judicial de su país, by Cathy Cockrell (1 December 2008) (Spanish)
• PBS Film Tells Story of Lawyers' Struggle to Free Antonio Zúñiga, by Andrew Cohen (7/26/2010)
• Presunto Culpable, Proven Innocent by Rachel Swan (7/28/2010)
• Filmmakers pursue justice in new documentary (7/15/2010)