Hot Docs 2008

The Chair is a compelling account of the fight of lawyers Don Moore and Louis Nizer to save convicted murderer Paul Crump from the electric chair. The film begins five days before the scheduled execution date. Their argument supporting sentence commutation is based on testimony from Crump's prison warden and others that Crump had changed for the better during his nine years in prison. This argument for clemency based on a prisoner's reform would set a legal precedent. The Drew team records some unexpectedly intimate moments. Moore, full of conviction and energy, has been lobbying the Catholic Church for support. When he receives a call informing him that the church has decided to back Crump's commutation, Moore breaks down and cries. The Chair is a poignant social document still relevant some 50 years later, when controversy regarding the realities of prisoner reform and the death penalty still exist.
-Shannon Abel