MovieChat Forums > Brother's Keeper (1992) Discussion > Prosecutor owned Delbert....

Prosecutor owned Delbert....

posted 14 years ago by cpitt398
19 replies | jump to latest

but still lost. I could care less really, if the support of the community was as widespread as the movie made it seem. I mean, if the family and the community doesn't care, what right do I have to.

I can't really say I'm surprised at the verdict though, depending on the makeup of the jury. I'm pretty sure even the judge hated the prosecutor's medical examiner. And the defense did a good job of making him look like he was lying in the whole, "if it wasn't for the confession speil", which somehow took the focus off the confession.

Don't get me wrong, I think everyone would like there to be more evidence than only a confession, but lets be realistic....most crimes are solved in this country due to confessions. If criminals were smart, there would be a lot less people in prison. Also it wasn't one confession but two, and the second one seemed less likely to be coerced.

Back to the prosecutor owning Delbert about not being as stupid as he looked...

A couple times early in the movie I felt like I would catch a glimpse of insight on Delberts part. I would think, wow this guy might be quicker than he lets on. This would last a couple of seconds and then he would do say/do something that would make me feel he might be retarded again.

Delbert was smart enough to know answers to questions about television shows that you wouldn't expect him to know, but stupid enough to not realize that you can't say you watch Wheel of Fortune but can't read. Or smart enough to watch Matlock and realize the he was a defense attorney yet dumb enough not to realize it is going to be hard to claim you got tricked into signing a false confession at the same time.

Pretty sure the defense attorney was the most surprised by the verdict in the whole courtroom. If they would have had to stand to hear the verdict, he would have probably fainted.

[–] OkkamsRazor 8 years ago

I would have to completely disagree with the prosecution "owning" Delbert. The only way that could've happened were if he'd charged him with first degree murder, since Delbert and his brothers allegedly had pre-planned killing Bill whilst they were standing under the big tree on the farm, and if he'd actually won. Otherwise, in my personal opinion, the prosecutor was a complete failure.
Other than the lying, smug pathologist who kept on trying to convince a jury that Bill must have been murdered because of the petechial hemorrhaging in the eyes and mouth, that seemed to be his star witness; he had no other evidence.
He tried to discredit Delbert several times by questioning him on television shows. I am of the opinion that everybody knows who Vanna White is. I've personally never seen 'Wheel of Fortune' before and I know she is the host of that show. I think after the Ward brothers finished farming for the day they would all sit in front of the television set, adjust the rabbit ears, and watch whatever show that they could get to come in clear.
Clearly the police coerced the false confessions from both Delbert and Lyman by using the timeless, age old practice of sensing a weak personality/mentally handicapped person and preying on them by lying, bullying, and misleading them into thinking that if they "help" the police by saying what the police lead them into saying they will get to go home. Some may say another documentary done by these same filmmakers ('Paradise Lost') shows this exact tactic. I won't comment on the guilt or innocence of Damien Echols but clearly Mr. Misskelley was coerced into a false confession. A more recent example of this is the Netflix docu-series, 'Making a Murderer'. I believe that Brenden Dassey's false confession is a much better example of these tactics.
As of 1992, 80% of criminal cases were solved by confessions. http://www.forensicpsychonline.com/terrellconfession.pdf
However, when it comes down to a trial, a jury is not allowed to rely on the confession alone. There must be some other evidence to consider in order for a defendant to be found guilty. This prosecutor clearly failed by having none. One of my personal heroes, Dr. Cyril Wecht, Forensic Pathologist proved this beyond a reasonable doubt.

[–] nightwishouge 8 years ago

Does the movie ever indicate what the motive might be for the police to coerce a confession out of Delbert? Bringing the case to trial on such flimsy evidence seems like an awful lot of time and money wasted for no particular reason if they didn't genuinely believe him guilty. The defense attorney at one point brings up that this might be a ploy to get ahold of the Ward brothers' land, but I don't really see how sending Delbert to jail would help in that cause if Lyman was still living there. That's a glaring aspect of the "big city prosecution railroading an innocent country farmer" theory that makes no sense to me.

[–] OkkamsRazor 8 years ago

Yes, there was the land issue. I also believe that part of the evidence, which was then incorporated into a possible motivation, was of a sexual nature. They had found semen on the dead brothers pant leg (cow or human?) and turned that into a possible motive. How and to what extent escapes me as it has been a while since I last viewed this. Those particulars have somehow been overwritten in my mind due to a shortage of brain space or worse; age.