Review: Witch Hunt

Witch Hunt is a first time feature documentary from directing team Don Hardy Jr. and Dana Nachman. It follows the stories of several residents of Bakersfield in Kern County, California, who were part of a string of cases prosecuted by young new District Attorney Ed Jagels. In a conservative community, Jagels was elected in 1983 after running a campaign based on aggressive prosecution and tough penalties, and boy did he ever bring it.


Jagels, his attorneys, and the sheriff's ofice accused, tried, and convicted several people of molestation and child pornography beginning his first year in office. Hey, it was the 80's, and that was just the kind of thing you did in the 80's, you know? The cases were typically brought against lower middle class families with children and a clean record. They were represented by over matched public defendants in courts where the odds were stacked heavily in favor of the prosecution, with most evidence in support of the accused banned from the court room. Jagels followed up on his promise of harsh penalties, and judges in these cases doled out penalties ranging from 40 to 400 years in prison. In one case, a man and his wife were to eligible for parole in the year 2110.


The only problem was that the only evidence against anyone of any wrong doing was the coerced testimony of several children, often the sons and daughters of the accused, which was obtained after long interrogations. There was no medical evidence that anything occurred, no eye witnesses, and no reason to believe that anything whatsoever had occurred.

Hardy and Nochman do an incredible job of storytelling, and there were tears abound when, toward the conclusion of the film, the last of the film's subjects was released from prison after serving 18 years. His conviction was overturned with the assistance of the Northern California Innocence Project. When the NCIP obtained the box of evidence for the case, they not only found cassette recordings of the interrogations of the children, but also medical exams, which the prosecution had claimed in court that they didn't exist. These exams showed no evidence of the repeated sodomy they claimed had occurred, or any other form of abuse for that matter.

After the screening, the film makers, two NCIP attorneys, several of the wrongfully convicted, and three of the alleged victims of abuse appeared on stage for a Q&A. Their stories and comments were both heart breaking and heartwarming all at the same time. Sadly, the attorneys commented, Jagels remains the District Attorney of Kern County to this day, having recently been reelected after running unopposed. I guess I won't be moving to Bakersfield anytime soon. Hell, I don't think I'd chance stopping there for gas. My imdb rating: 8/10.