Maurice Possley, a Pulitzer Prize-winning criminal justice reporter, and Reverend Carroll Pickett, a retired death house chaplain, spoke about the injustice of the death penalty in the criminal system following a screening of the documentary At the Death House Door in an event hosted by the Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism's Justice Brandeis Innocence Project last Thursday.Founding Director of the Schuster Institute Florence Graves said the purpose of the event was to address the death penalty row, the existence of which deprives wrongly convicted criminals of the opportunity to be declared innocent. She explained that the Institute's main aim is to help the wrongly convicted "appeal for a new trial." The event focused on Carlos Deluna's case, originating in Texas, a "national leader" in carrying out executions by lethal injection according to an article published in The Houston Chronicle last February.

At the Death House Door by filmmakers Steve James and Peter Gilbert, provided a visual argument against the death penalty. The film chronicles the career journey of death house chaplain of 15 years Rev. Carroll Pickett, who initially believed in the death penalty after the murders of two of his parishioners.

The documentary shows how Pickett's experiences at the Huntsville prison in Texas gradually change his mind about the death penalty. Over the years, Pickett oversaw over 95 executions, including the world's first lethal injection, and still he is able to recall each time clearly due to his collection of recordings that chronicle the last days of the inmates. The case of Carlos Deluna affected Pickett the most. Deluna was convicted in 1983 for the murder of gas station clerk Wanda Lopez and denied clemency in 1989 despite the weak evidence against him and the strong possibility that a look-alike, Carlos Hernandez, had committed the crime.

The reverend was convinced of Deluna's innocence through his interactions with the convict. He was, however, unable to be anything but a witness at the execution. Since then, Pickett has firmly opposed the death penalty. Pickett never specified whether he believed in the death penalty in cases where it is certain that that person has been rightly convicted.

Also featured in the film is Possley's investigative team at the Chicago Tribune, which was responsible for unveiling compelling evidence against Deluna's conviction 16 years after his execution. The team reviewed testimonies from Hernandez's relatives and friends, revealing Hernandez's confession to Lopez's murder, as well as the old court records.

Rose Rhoton, Deluna's sister, said that "nobody listened" to Deluna's repeated denial of the charges, but years later the world is all too quick to admit, "Oops, I made a mistake."

After the documentary, Pickett explained that Texas still permits the death penalty despite the recent spotlight on its wrongly convicted cases.

According to the reverend, it prevails because it is a part of the "Texan tradition," even though many people "don't believe" in the penalty.

Pickett said he prefers to take a pragmatic rather than a moral argument against the death penalty. Despite knowing that a "large group of moral people" who do not believe in the penalty exists in Texas, Pickett believes that if people are informed of how much "it costs to kill" they will be more inclined to support abolishment. He revealed that it costs $6 million per conviction.

Possley stressed that "the system needs to acknowledge that it makes mistakes" and said he is still against the death penalty in cases where it is certain that the inmate has been rightly convicted. He asked the audience on what criteria they would make the judgement of who is allowed to live or die.

It is cases like Deluna's that the Schuster Institute investigates. "Class and race," Graves said, play a huge role in these convictions, seeing how the majority of wrongly convicted people are poor, black and unable to afford effective legal representation. Such cases are referred to the Institute by the New England Innocence Project and reassessed using police records, reconstructing the crime scene and re-interviewing witnesses.