This WGBH La Plaza documentary
was made following the May 1989 hearing on LaGuer's motion for a new trial. It starts with his first thoughts upon arriving
at a high security prison facing a life term. Besides interviews with LaGuer it includes Boston Magazine executive editor
John Strahinich; Harvard Law School students Barry Berke and Lee Crawford; legal advisor and Fitchburg attorney Robert Terk; psychiatrist Dr. Daniel Weiss; LaGuer's sister Ida
Ramos; attorney Andrew Mandell, speaking for Peter Ettenberg, LaGuer's original attorney; and juror William Nowick.
The documentary exposes
questions about the knife that seemed to disappear from the evidence. It discusses underwear listed in the forensic report.
LaGuer argued that his lawyer's failure to compel its production indicated an inadequate defense. The film mentions the
rape kit. It raises: The victim's schizophrenia; her identification of LaGuer; alibi witnesses who were never contacted; how
lack of money influenced his defense; and juror racism.
LAGUER IN COURT
Raw footage exists of LaGuer's
closing argument / appeal for a new trial on May 22, 1989.
This aired in 1992 the
day the Supreme Judicial Court ruled for LaGuer that juror racism is grounds for a new trial. This landmark decision sent
the case back to the trial judge for a finding of fact.
Ryan takes the viewer to
the crime scene using the police report to narrate the events. She mentions the search of LaGuer's apartment, pointing
out that the judge criticized as "sloppy police work" the fact that "nothing" was seized from the apartment. (In fact, socks
police reported seeing in the apartment later showed up among the evidence.)
Ryan explores: Inconsistencies
in the police reports; the victim's statements and her identification of LaGuer; Detective Ronald Carignan's claim to have
lifted a "partial fingerprint" from the crime scene; that the forensic report indicated the presence of both Type 'O' and
Type 'B' blood at the crime scene (something DNA testing in 2001 showed was not true); and that the rape kit was not delivered
to the State Police lab until a week after the crime.
Ryan interviews LaGuer,
and his legal advisor Robert Terk. Nobody in the Leominster Police or the District Attorney's office talked to her.
This looks at the judicial
process that convicted LaGuer. Ryan sheds light on the frame of mind the jurors may have been in nearing the end of a full
month in the jury pool. She interviews Juror William Nowick extensively about racist comments he heard from members of the
panel. She interviews another juror, preserving his anonymity.
Ryan focuses on the victim's
courtroom testimony. She interviews: Russell and Retta Pouliot, two potential alibi witnesses who were never contacted at
the time of the trial; psychiatrist Dr. Steven Hoge on the significance of the victim's schizophrenia; Andrew Mandella spokesman for LaGuer's original lawyer, Peter Ettenberg; and Barry Berke and Lee Crawford, two Harvard Law School students who helped LaGuer.
Ryan hones in on Ettenberg's
failure to demand production of the "suspect's" underwear mentioned in the forensic report.
A TV NEWS MAGAZINE GEARED
TOWARD A LATINO AUDIENCE.
This show focuses
on LaGuer's early years of incarceration and how he gained the skills for public awareness and legal campaigns. It has excerpts
from letters LaGuer wrote to prominent lawyers and journalists and an extensive interview with Michael Caplette, his first
court appointed appellate attorney.
SPANISH LANGUAGE TV PROGRAM
This show is notable
for the passion with which Robert Terk, LaGuer's legal advisor, lays out the case for innocence in a long interview just outside
the perimeter of the prison in Gardner. He points out that it once was a mental hospital and the victim had been a patient
there. The piece delves into LaGuer's spiritual outlook. Interviews are presented in the original language (e.g. LaGuer in
Spanish and Terk in English) with subtitles.
This aired around the time
the Supreme Judicial Court heard the juror racism issues. It has a quote from Justice Paul J. Liacos that the high court must
use its superintendency powers to address widespread discrimination against Hispanics in the state.
URBAN UPDATE WITH DAISY
OLIVERA (1994)
A set up describes the
crime using Ryan's footage and cites those who have labeled the trial "a farce."
Olivera conducts a long
interview LaGuer around the time the Supreme Judicial Court decided not to revisit the case after the trial judge and an appeals
court determined that there was not enough evidence of juror racism to warrant a new trial. LaGuer describes his feelings
when he arrived in prison and how hard it is for a convict to get anyone to listen to protestations of innocence. He talks
about his views on the nature of the judiciary, the role of personalities in his case, his philosophy of life, and about his
goals to change the legal system after he is exonerated.
After another short set
up there is a panel interview with: Richard Slowe, a former Suffolk County assistant district attorney and former FBI agent
who took an interest in the case as a private investigator. He draws on his experience in law enforcement to severely criticize
how the original investigation was conducted. He hones in on the sock found a the scene of the crime, the mishandling of the
rape kit, and his incredulity that police didn't find a trace of physical evidence to connect someone accused of an eight-hour
violent rampage to the victim's apartment. Patricia O'Neill, a public defender who argued LaGuer's case to the Supreme Judicial
Court, talks about the insidious effects of juror racism. Francisco Gonzalez, of the Lawyer's Committee for Civil Rights,
talks about the broad support LaGuer's case was attracting in the civil rights community.
HISPANIC MAGAZINE - DAISY
OLIVERA
In this show Richard
Slowe comments on how bad police work leads to mistakes.
GREATER BOSTON WITH EMILY
ROONEY (July 2000)
This show aired the
day before LaGuer's second appearance before the parole board and coinciding with his efforts to get DNA testing.
It has set up pieces including
interviews with LaGuer in prison and with Innocence Project attorneys Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld. Boston Magazine's John Strahinich states that a hospital matron said she saw Detective Ronald Carignan show the victim only
one photo, not an array as he claimed. The show emphasizes LaGuer's eagerness to have DNA testing done and obstacles District Attorney John Conte put in his way.
Following the set ups are
panel discussions with Strahinich, BU writing professor Sayre Sheldon, DNA expert Frederick Bieber, and defense attorney Jeffrey Denner.
Dan Rea is a senior reporter who has a law degree and who is known in Boston for braking the Joseph Salvati case, in which a man spent 30 years in prison for a murder he didn't commit. Rea reports on LaGuer's strenuous efforts to
have DNA tests. District Attorney John Conte is interviewed on camera.
In this hard hitting look
at the fingerprint report discovered in November 2001 Rea makes a direct connection between Detective Carignan's testimony and the newly discovered report. It shows that Carignan
had been informed that a set of four fingerprints found on a key piece of evidence did not match LaGuer's.
CHANNEL 7 NEWS SEGMENT
WITH JEFF DERDERIAN
This brief interview concentrates
on LaGuer's hopes and dreams for his life after prison.
1) The discovery of exculpatory evidence (12/11/01)
2) Anticipation of the DNA tests (2/15/02)
3) The DNA test results (3/24/02)
4) An overview of the LaGuer case - Part I (5/20/02)
This short NECN documentary uses dramatic techniques to summarize the case against LaGuer. In it DA Conte erroneously
states that five of LaGuer's appeals went to the Supreme Judicial Court. It has footage from LaGuer's July 2000 parole
board hearing and excerpts from letters written by John Silber and William Styron on LaGuer's behalf. It shows LaGuer's efforts to have DNA testing.
5) An overview of the LaGuer case - Part II (5/21/02)
It includes information on the exculpatory fingerprint report discovered a few months before the damning DNA result.
It allows LaGuer to describe how he felt upon receiving the DNA results and for laying out the basics of his theory that police
had stolen his underwear and that somehow biological material from his underwear had ended up in the rape kit. It ends with
LaGuer saying he will be vindicated and that he lives for that day.
A parallel look at LaGuer's
case and that of Angel Hernandez, a Springfield man exonerated by a DNA after more than a decade fighting for a test. It has interviews with LaGuer's
attorney David Siegel, John Strahinich, William Nowick, and law professor Daniel Givelbar. Especially interesting is a shot of the evidence clearly showing a raft of tube socks not accounted for in key chain of
custody documents.
The producers refused (unlike
NECN) to include a post DNA test interview with LaGuer. Instead, they posted a transcript on the WGBH Web site, intimating that, based on the DNA result, they believed LaGuer was
guilty.
Aired soon after the damning
DNA test, this discussion with Strahinich and BU writing professor Leslie Epstein, shows them stunned and at a loss for an explanation.
AMERICA
This is a polished Spanish
language documentary on LaGuer's case from the late 80's or early 90's. It includes a rapid fire summary of the main points.
It has interviews with LaGuer's sisters and his father. Nobody from law enforcement gave an interview.
Emily Rooney did a recap
of the case and LaGuer’s claims of innocence on June 11, 2003, the night before the recent parole hearing. That was
followed by an interview with Boston University Chancellor John Silber. He raised issues about the validity of the evidence and said that in his mind it is “an open question” whether
falsely incriminating evidence was planted. He also attacked District Attorney John Conte for opposing testing for two years.
The show ended with Rooney saying that in her opinion 20 years in prison was a punishment that more than fit the crime for
which LaGuer was convicted.
This aired on June 12,
2003 – the night of the parole hearing. It gives an overview with footage of the hearing. Emily Rooney then interviews
Robert, Elizabeth and Samantha Barry in the studio. Samantha, 18, who was adopted from Honduras, spoke about how lucid her
grandmother, Lennice Plante, was in the years before her death. Elizabeth Barry said that her mother was misdiagnosed with
schizophrenia after a mental breakdown resulting from her husband’s emotional and physical abuse.
An entire 22-minute episode
of this nightly news magazine was devoted to the LaGuer case on June 30, 2003. It offers a skeptical view of LaGuer’s
claims that the DNA test was tainted by contaminated evidence. At the end the anchor mentions the fact that six state representatives were inquiring about the whereabouts of the missing fingerprints. The anchor also states that someone is writing a book based on his belief
that the LaGuer is innocent. The show was followed by a Mike Barnicle commentary stating flatly that science has proved that
Ben LaGuer is a rapist.
"A staple of local broadcast
journalism is headed for the lock-up - the prison interview. In new guidelines by the Department of Correction, all audio
and video equipment will be banned in medium and maximum security prisons; all interviews will be supervised; and in granting
interviews the DOC will consider the rights of victims and whether access will result in a benefit to law enforcement.
"Convicted criminals like
Gerald Amirault and Ben LaGuer have received favorable press coverage. But Boston defense attorney Jeffrey Denner says press scrutiny is one way to verify a person's guilt or innocent. 'It's very clear that simply because someone's in
there doesn't mean they're guilty and one of the best ways of establishing one's innocence is to get the public on their side,'
Denner says. 'Because when the public sentiment runs a certain way, it's much more likely that the courts are going to be
responsive'."
