USA Film Fest - ‘Robert Blecker Wants Me Dead’

How on earth can a pro-capital punishment crusader and a death row inmate be friends? That question is at the center of Ted Schillinger’s disturbing, fascinating, and occasionally funny documentary about passion, murder and the American death penalty. Robert Blecker is one of the country’s most impassioned advocates for capital punishment. Blecker teaches at New York Law School and believes that death is the only penalty for “the worst of the worst” – that small fraction of the nation’s convicted murderers who have surrendered their right to live by the irredeemable viciousness of their crimes. Daryl Holton is one of those people, and he wants to die. Or does he? In 1997, Holton shot his four children to death in Shelbyville, Tennessee, and received four separate death sentences for the crimes. During Blecker’s research trip to Riverbend maximum security prison outside Nashville, the two men meet and form a puzzling and engrossing relationship that spans a year and a half—until Holton’s execution—covering all the twists and turns in his story in the process. If you followed the coverage of Holton’s execution last fall in The New York Times, you probably wondered how the seemingly rational, mild-mannered, Holton could have committed such atrocities. Blecker tried to get Holton to resolve that paradox before his time ran out, while this gripping film compels us to examine the meaning of justice, mercy and morality in our society. 103mins. Ted Schillinger and Robert Blecker in attendance.

Information from the festival's website