Sundance screenings, OWN deal, and District Attorney response
Standing ovation at the Sundance Film Festival for "Crime After Crime"
We were also thrilled to be able to announce (immediately after Sundance) a home video and national broadcast partnership with The Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN). I can’t imagine a better champion for this film than Oprah and her new network!
Also at Sundance, we launched Debbie’s Campaign, a national nonprofit campaign to use this film to promote changes in the criminal justice system and raise awareness of domestic violence. We raised over $10,000 at Sundance, and raised a similar amount at The New York Jewish Film Festival at the end of January. Major thanks to our partners in this effort, The Foundation for Jewish Culture and The Habeas Project.
Other highlights at Sundance included our collaboration with Salt Lake City’s Calvary Baptist Church. After having familiarized themselves with the film, Calvary was kind enough to send a volunteer gospel choir to the streets of Park City duringthe Sundance Film Festival. The choir promoted the film and sang some of the same songs that Deborah Peagler sings in “Crime After Crime.”
Our Sundance premieres and the enthusiastic audience response soon led to media coverage of how the film exposes misconduct within the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office. The Los Angeles Times, for example, ran an article with the headline “Sundance documentary raises questions about D.A. Steve Cooley’s role in appeal of 1982 murder case.”
Not surprisingly, the D.A.’s office responded to the film with a statement that Cooley “had no plans to see the film,” and Cooley’s spokesperson Sandi Gibbons regurgitated several worn-out accusations about Ms. Peagler. Gibbons was quoted as saying that “Deborah Peagler intentionally orchestrated the murder-for-hire of her estranged boyfriend. She lured him to the spot where he was killed. She witnessed the murder and drove the killers away. She profited by receiving money from the victim’s insurance.”
Unfortunately, these accusations are not supported by the District Attorney’s Office own evidence, including a recently discovered internal memorandum from 1983 (the memo is featured in the film and is available for download here).
The memo, written by a head deputy at the time, begins by stating, “the trial deputy and myself no longer feel that the death penalty is appropriate in this case.” Neither this crucial fact nor the evidence underlying it were ever shared with Debbie Peagler. Instead, the prosecutor continued to threaten Debbie with the death penalty, wrongfully coercing her to accept a “deal” to life in prison. This kind of “overcharging” is unlawful and unethical.
The memo goes on to state that the key witness in the case against Debbie “appears to have committed perjury.” Yet, the prosecution relied on that testimony in pursuing its case against Debbie. It now appears that this lying witness was also a paid police informant. It is unlawful and unethical for a prosecutor to use perjured evidence in any legal proceeding, especially one in which a defendant is led to believe that his or her life is at stake due to a possible death sentence.
The memo also describes “additional considerations,” including “the possibility that the victim Oliver Wilson was killed because he had been molesting Deborah Peagler’s minor child from a previous marriage.” This factor would have undoubtedly led both judge and jury to have a greater understanding of Debbie’s actions, possibly leading them to conclude that she was only guilty of a lesser crime or that she was acting in self-defense. Again, it was unlawful and unethical for prosecutors to hide their knowledge of this exculpatory evidence from Debbie and her legal counsel.
What may be most striking is the fact that, while Debbie sat behind bars for the next quarter century, the memo and the evidence underlying it remained buried in the DA’s files. Under District Attorney Steve Cooley, the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office continued to oppose Debbie’s requests for parole and to assert that it had always had a “slam dunk case” against Debbie. Meanwhile, Cooley’s office refused numerous requests to turn the document over to Debbie and her legal team. In 2007 private investigator Bobby Buechler finally managed to obtain the memo from an independent source.
Hopefully, the next journalist who has a chance to speak to Ms. Gibbons or Mr. Cooley about the Peagler case will be able to get a response to some of the lingering questions about the case, including:
- Why did Steve Cooley authorize a written deal to help free Ms. Peagler in 2005?
- Why did Steve Cooley subsequently renege on his own written offer?
- Why did the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office suppress material exculpatory evidence in Debbie’s case for 25 years despite an ongoing obligation to hand it over to the defense?
By leaving these questions unanswered, Steve Cooley will only subject his own judgment and character to further public scrutiny.