Well, it has nothing to with audio, but then again it is streaming. And the KRO-NCRV docu about Clinton Young ís a good story too. So onward, by way of exception!
KRO-NCRV sent us the following press release. And although not necessarily audio, you can watch it via streaming in an app like NPO Start or NL Ziet. So have a look at this docu, covering a remarkable story! The impossible has happened: Clinton Young who waited in a Texas death row for almost 20 years for his execution, may, under conditions, await his retrial in freedom. In late January 2022, 38-year-old Clinton left prison and his feet touched the grass for the first time since he was a teenager. And all this is partly thanks to the tireless efforts of a group of very committed Dutch people.
Evidence
In 2001, Clinton Young was convicted of a double murder and given the death penalty. Filmmaker Jessica Villerius gets to know Clinton in 2014 while making the KRO-NCRV documentary Code red: The death penalty. In 2017, Villerius made the sequel Deal with Death, in which she unravels his case and focuses on one question: Did Clinton Young actually do it? Villerius films the convicted Young several times on his death row in Texas, where she talks to him in a steel structure behind glass. She discovers that the scenario on which Young was convicted is simply impossible. With that conclusion, she confronts Young’s co-defendant David Page, who is serving a 30-year sentence in another Texas prison. During the interview, David admits that he made a deal with the Justice Department and did everything he could to blacken Clinton.
Dutchmen to the rescue
After the broadcasting of the documentary Deal with Death and Brandpunt: The Last Chance, Dutch viewers lend Clinton a helping hand en masse by means of letters, books and postcards. Renate Bouwmeester, the Dutch lawyer who alerted Jessica Villerius to Clinton’s lawsuit, establishes the Clinton Young Foundation. Merel Pontier, a criminal lawyer from Rotterdam, is so taken with the case that she decides to move to Texas to provide legal aid to Clinton and other death row inmates.
Free!
Together with Clinton’s lawyers, the three women manage to get the case worldwide attention, increasing the pressure on the judicial authorities in Texas. Then it turns out that the District Attorney responsible for Clinton’s conviction has played a nefarious double role in the trial. In late January 2022, at an unexpected hearing, the judge rules that there are not enough grounds to hold Clinton any longer. If he pays a bond, he will be allowed to await his retrial at home in freedom. After nearly 20 years of solitary confinement, Clinton suddenly finds himself outside.
Docu
In the KRO-NCRV documentary Clinton Young: About time, Villerius takes the viewer on a journey from the moment she, Renate and Merel hear that the judge has decided to release Young on bail. A special encounter with the ex-convict, without glass, but with an ankle bracelet. He enters an unknown new world, he has no idea how an iPhone works or how to operate Netflix. Villerius: “For me it was an enormous reality check about how quickly time goes, but also how it has stood still for someone who has been in solitary confinement for over 19 years. What resonated with me the most was Clinton’s intrinsic fear of doing something wrong. He was afraid the first day we were with him that he would be picked up again. Never before have I seen the effects of institutionalization so closely’.
The documentary Clinton Young: About time is produced by POSH PRODUCTIONS in cooperation with KRO-NCRV
Clinton Young: About time, Friday, April 15 at 21.00 hours at KRO-NCRV on NPO3. And there is more about Clinton Young in matter of docu’s!