| Summary: | For over five years, 22-year-old Miguel Martinez has been languishing on death row in Huntsville, Texas, convicted of murdering businessman James Smiley and two young boys in Smiley's home. Intent on robbery, Martinez and two friends broke into what they thought would be an empty house. Martinez denied that he was responsible for the killings. The poorest of the three youths, he was the only one brought to trial. One of the accomplices was the son of a city judge who was saved from trial for giving state's evidence. The other, a youth who had been mixed up in drugs and satanism, was eventually arrested for a different crime and never faced the murder charges. This investigation by F. Ryden, who first met Miguel while filming Not Too Young to Die, calls into question the use of the death penalty, especially when the possibility exists that justice may not have been carried out in the court proceedings. A number of factors cast doubt on the trial. The citizens of Laredo were anxious for a conviction. The district attorney was running for re-election. Miguel was defended by an inexperienced lawyer. The boy who owned the murder weapons, a judge's son, was never brought to trial. The forensic expert who testified was found to have falsified testimony in other cases. The young Martinez talks solemnly about his years on death row, and clings to the hope that an appeal may be granted him.
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