Instruct: Given a question, retrieve documents that answer the question.
Query: How old were the West Memphis Three when they were convicted in 1994?
At the time of their arrests, Jessie Misskelley, Jr. was 17 years old, Jason Baldwin was 16 years old, and Damien Echols was 18 years old.[19]
Originally intended to be a documentary about "three guilty teenagers on trial for murder", Sinofsky and Berlinger soon decided that their film "" would take a different path. "Paradise Lost" chronicles the 1993 murders of three 8-year-old boys, Stephen Branch, Christopher Byers, and Michael Moore in rural Arkansas, and argues that the fear and panic of satanism, along with questionable police work, led to the arrests and convictions of three teenagers, Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jessie Miskelley for the murders, otherwise known as the West Memphis Three. Since its 1996 premier on HBO, the film has helped fuel interest and support for the convicted men. Some believe the three were convicted more for their choices in fashion and music than for actual evidence.
West Memphis Three is three men who – while teenagers – were tried and convicted, in 1994, of the 1993 murders of three boys in West Memphis, Arkansas.
The 1993 murders of three young boys and the subsequent convictions of Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jessie Misskelley, Jr. brought a lot of unwanted attention to West Memphis. The three young men convicted were known as the West Memphis Three and brought about a great amount of public intrigue. Three documentaries have been made about the incident, the first being "". Echols, Baldwin, and Misskelley were released from jail in 2011 after signing an Alford plea which allowed them to plea guilty while maintaining their innocence. They were released with time served and placed on probation until 2021.
In 1994, a memorial was erected for the three murder victims. The memorial is located in the playground of Weaver Elementary School in West Memphis, where all three victims were second graders at the time of the crime. In May 2013, for the 20th anniversary of the slayings, Weaver Elementary School principal Sheila Grissom raised funds to refurbish the memorial.[18]
Since its founding by Steven Drizin in 2009, the Center on Wrongful Convictions of Youth's faculty and students have helped free more than twenty wrongfully convicted youth through the post-conviction and habeas process, many of whom were serving life sentences. Its clients have included Brendan Dassey, whose case rose to international prominence via the Netflix series "Making a Murderer," and Damien Echols of the so-called West Memphis Three, whose case rose to prominence via a series of documentary films including HBO's "Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills" and Sir Peter Jackson's "West of Memphis."
Devil's Knot: The True Story of the West Memphis Three is a 2002 true crime book by Mara Leveritt, about the 1993 murders of three eight-year-old children and the subsequent trials of three teenagers charged with and convicted of the crimes. The names of the three teens convicted - Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jessie Misskelley - would come to be known as the West Memphis Three. Leveritt's book revolves around the central idea that the three teenagers' convictions stemmed from "Satanic panic" rather than actual evidence. The book also focuses on one of the victim's stepfathers and his possible connection with the murders. All three teenagers convicted were released on August 19, 2011. A film based on the book, "Devil's Knot", was released in 2013.
Douglas was consulted in another controversial case known as the "West Memphis Three". In 1993, three eight-year-old boys were murdered and police and the prosecutor's office claimed the children died as a result of a Satanic ritual sacrifice. Three teens were later tried and convicted. Douglas was consulted by the defense in 2006-7, by which time there was new evidence of the three's innocence, and his report concluded that the killings were not related to Satanism but rather were unplanned homicides by a lone adult who knew the victims and felt rage against them. In 2011, the three men were released under an Alford plea.
On February 5, 1994, Misskelley was convicted by a jury of one count of first-degree murder and two counts of second-degree murder.[31] The court sentenced him to life plus 40 years in prison.[32] His conviction was appealed, but the Arkansas Supreme Court affirmed the conviction.[33]
As with the film and its two sequels, "West of Memphis" follows the events of the West Memphis Three, a case in which three teenagers (Jessie Misskelley, Damien Echols and Jason Baldwin) were arrested for the murders of three 8-year-old children.
In May 1994, the three defendants appealed their convictions;[40] the convictions were upheld on direct appeal.[25][41] In June 1996, Misskelley's lawyer, Dan Stidham, was preparing an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.[42]
In 2007, Echols petitioned for a retrial, based on a statute permitting post-conviction testing of DNA evidence due to technological advances made since 1994 which might provide exoneration for the wrongfully convicted.[43] However, the original trial judge, Judge David Burnett, disallowed presentation of this information in his court. This ruling was in turn thrown out by the Arkansas Supreme Court as to all three defendants on November 4, 2010.[44]
Author Mara Leveritt makes numerous comparisons of the Memphis Three trials to the Salem Witch Trials, stating that the three Memphis defendants were convicted based on the "Satanic Craze" the community was surrounded by after the murders. Actual evidence used by the prosecution during the trials included pictures of Metallica T-shirts worn by Jason Baldwin and books checked out by Damien Echols at his public library; the prosecutions' cases offered little more than circumstantial evidence. Eventually, all three defendants were convicted of the murders, with Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley receiving life sentences without parole, and Damien Echols receiving the death penalty.Atom Egoyan directed the 2013 film adaptation, starring Colin Firth as Ron Lax and Reese Witherspoon as Pamela Hobbs, mother of Steven Branch.
There have been a number of books about the case, also arguing that the suspects were wrongly convicted: Devil's Knot by Mara Leveritt; Blood of Innocents by Guy Reel; and The Last Pentacle of the Sun: Writings in Support of the West Memphis Three, edited by Brett Alexander Savory & M. W. Anderson, and featuring dark fiction and non-fiction by well-known writers of speculative fiction. In 2005, Damien Echols completed his memoir, Almost Home, Vol 1, offering his perspective of the case.[72] A biography of John Mark Byers by Greg Day was published in May 2012.[73]
Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory is a 2011 American documentary film directed by Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky, and sequel to their films "" (1996) and "" (2000). The three films are about West Memphis Three, three teenage boys accused of the May 1993 murders and sexual mutilation of three prepubescent boys as a part of an alleged satanic ritual in West Memphis, Arkansas. "Purgatory" offers an update on the case of the West Memphis Three, who were all recognized guilty of the murders in 1994 but kept on claiming their innocence since then, before culminating with the trio's attempt at an Alford plea.
Berlinger is best known for the film series "Paradise Lost", which documents the murder trial and the subsequent legal battles of three Arkansas teenagers, Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley Jr., wrongfully convicted of murder. The court convicted the youths (known as the West Memphis Three) of murdering three eight-year-old boys as part of a "ritual killing," although no physical evidence linked the three young men to the crime. "Paradise Lost" documents the 20-year ordeal of these three young men from arrest to conviction, through years of unsuccessful legal efforts, to a final successful appeal that resulted in their release in the summer of 2012.
The families of the three victims are divided in their opinions as to the guilt or innocence of the West Memphis Three. In 2000, the biological father of Christopher Byers, Rick Murray, expressed his doubts about the guilty verdicts on the West Memphis Three website.[64] In 2007, Pamela Hobbs, the mother of victim Stevie Branch, joined those who have publicly questioned the verdicts, calling for a reopening of the verdicts and further investigation of the evidence.[65] In late 2007, John Mark Byers—who was previously vehement in his belief that Echols, Misskelley, and Baldwin were guilty—also announced that he now believes that they are innocent.[66] "I had made the comment if it were ever proven the three were innocent, I'd be the first to lead the charge for their freedom," said Byers, and take "every opportunity that I have to voice that the West Memphis Three are innocent and the evidence and proof prove they're innocent."[67] Byers has spoken to the media on behalf of the convicted, and has expressed his desire for justice for the families of both the victims and the three accused.[67]
Burnett was the presiding judge in the murder trials of Jessie Misskelley, Damien Echols and Jason Baldwin, collectively known as the West Memphis Three. In February 1994 after a jury convicted Misskelley of one count of first-degree murder and two counts of second-degree murder, Burnett sentenced Misskelley, then 18 years old, to life in prison plus 40 years. In March 1994 after a jury convicted Echols and Baldwin of three counts of capital murder, Burnett sentenced Echols to death and Baldwin, 17 at the time, to life in prison without parole.
"Revelations" takes place five years after the events depicted in the first film, as Damien Echols, one of the West Memphis Three, who were all recognized guilty of the murders in 1994, appeals his lethal injection sentence. It mostly focuses on John Mark Byers, the father of one of the victims who has grown increasingly obsessed with the West Memphis Three, and on a support group who is convinced that the three are innocent. The film was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Nonfiction Special, and was later followed by a third film, "", in 2011.
Berg has directed the 10-minute-long documentary film "Polarized" (2007) for Al Gore's Live Earth Pledge. She also produced "Bhutto", a documentary feature that played at Sundance 2010. "West of Memphis" (2012), produced by Peter Jackson and Damien Echols, documents the story of the West Memphis Three, who were convicted as teenagers of the 1993 murder of three boys in West Memphis, Arkansas. The film has received critical acclaim and won numerous awards at film festivals, including the Sundance Film Festival, where the film premiered in January 2012, and the Toronto International Film Festival.
Vedder was a longtime and outspoken supporter for the Free the West Memphis Three movement, a cause that advocated the release of three young men who were convicted in 1994 of the gruesome murders of three boys in West Memphis, Arkansas. In an interview with Larry King on December 19, 2007, Damien Echols, who was then on death row for the murders, said that Vedder had been the "greatest friend a person could have" and that he had collaborated with him while in prison. The song "Army Reserve" on Pearl Jam's 2006 self-titled album features a lyrical collaboration between Vedder and Echols. On August 19, 2011, Vedder and Natalie Maines attended the release hearing and arranged a celebration party for them afterwards.
The West Memphis Three (Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jessie Misskelley) were convicted for the 1993 murders of three 8-year-old boys. One month after the murders, police interrogated Misskelley, who has an IQ of 72, for five hours before he confessed to the murders, implicating Echols and Baldwin. Misskelley immediately recanted and said he was coerced to confess. Despite that the confession contained massive internal inconsistencies and differed significantly from what the physical evidence revealed, Misskelley and Baldwin were sentenced to life without parole and Echols was sentenced to death. For the next 17 years, they maintained their innocence. In August 2011, DNA evidence was inconclusive and included an unknown contributor. Prosecutors did not throw out the convictions based on other evidence and offered them a deal that they plead guilty in exchange for time served. They accepted, but said that they will continue to clear their names and find the real murderer(s).
Ofshe gave testimony in the case of the West Memphis 3, three boys tried and convicted for the murders of three children in the Robin Hood Hills area of West Memphis, Arkansas, United States during 1993. Damien Echols, the alleged ringleader, was sentenced to death. Jessie Misskelley and Jason Baldwin were sentenced to life in prison. The case has received considerable attention. Many critics charge that the arrests and convictions were a miscarriage of justice inspired by a misguided moral panic and that the defendants were wrongfully convicted during a period of intense media scrutiny and so-called "satanic panic" of the 1980s and '90s. During Jessie's trial, Ofshe testified that the recording was a "classic example" of police coercion. The West Memphis Three were finally released from prison.
The West Memphis Three are three men who– while teenagers– were tried and convicted, in 1994, of the 1993 murders of three boys in West Memphis, Arkansas. Damien Echols was sentenced to death, Jessie Misskelley, Jr. was sentenced to life imprisonment plus two 20-year sentences, and Jason Baldwin was sentenced to life imprisonment. During the trial, the prosecution asserted that the children were killed as part of a Satanic ritual.[1][2][3]
Directors Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky filmed a 1994 documentary called "" on the West Memphis Three, about three teenagers convicted of murder. Metallica allowed their music to be used in the movie, which was the first time Metallica let any film use their music and the band drew attention to the cases. Following success, the directors eventually were interested in a no-holds-barred look at Metallica, which the band later agreed to and became "Some Kind of Monster".