Film Description

Selected for the 1999 Berlin Film Festival and
broadcast on HBO Signature, "Innocent Until Proven Guilty" takes a critical look at the criminal justice system through the eyes of a young African-American public defender in Washington, D.C. At a time when the number of African-American men under
criminal justice supervision has risen to an
astounding one in three in the United States
and one in two in Washington, D.C., the film
brings insight to what has become a national
crisis. The program follows James Forman Jr.
in his work at the Public Defender Service and
at "See Forever", the alternative high school for
juvenile ex-offenders which he co-founded.
Forman, whose parents were leaders of the
civil rights movement, is carrying on their
tradition of activism. Doing what he considers
to be work in the front lines of the civil rights
movement today, Forman defends black men
who cannot afford representation, to help
them break an ongoing cycle of crime and
incarceration.