If you had told me

We have written in the past about the film Love Lived on Death Row, which tells the story of the Syriani family. (The Syrianis came to oppose the execution of their father, who had been sentenced to death for killing their mother.)

The filmmaker, Linda Booker, has written a guest post on the Dallas Morning News death penalty blog. Here's the opening paragraph:

If you had told me four years ago on the day I received my Certificate in Documentary Studies from Duke University that my first major project would feature the death penalty issue, I probably would have smiled politely and said, "I doubt that." It wasn't an issue I had extreme feelings about one way or the other. But several weeks later as I was checking the weather on our local TV station's website, a headline caught my eye: "Family Forgives Father For A Mother's Death." I immediately felt inexplicably compelled to make a documentary about this family's amazing story of forgiveness. What I didn't know then is that checking the weather that day would change my life and some of my beliefs as I went on to produce a feature length film about the Syriani siblings' story and their experience with North Carolina's system of justice and the media as they faced their father's impending execution.

The discussion among those commenting on this post is pretty heated; some of our readers may want to join in.