Santa Clara University

A Modern Day Witch Hunt

“Witch Hunt” may sound like it’s a movie about the 1600’s, but the modern-day, real-life story recounts no less chilling a tale than the Salem witch trials of centuries ago.

The film chronicles the lives of several families torn apart by wrongful convictions of child molestation in the 1980s in Bakersfield, California. Central to the documentary is the story of John Stoll, who was ultimately exonerated through the work of the Northern California Innocence Project (NCIP), founded by SCU law professor Cookie Ridolfi, and Linda Starr, current NCIP legal director. Stoll served almost 20 years in prison for crimes he didn’t commit.

Directed by Dana Nachman and Don Hardy and executive produced and narrated by Sean Penn, “Witch Hunt” premiered at the 2008 Toronto Film Festival and appeared at the 2009 Cinequest San Jose Film Festival at the end of February.

“It was a story that had to be told,” Hardy says. “I went into it thinking that only guilty people went to prison in our country. I really didn’t believe that people could be wrongfully convicted. This opened my eyes a bit.”

Ridolfi knows too well that people can be wrongfully convicted. The NCIP itself has secured the exoneration of seven others besides Stoll since its inception in 2001.

“Movies like this are critically important, because they tell the story. People need to know that wrongful convictions occur,” Ridolfi says. “I want people to leave that film knowing that there are other innocent people in prison. There are lots of ‘John Stolls’ in prison.”

The film has been picked up by MSNBC. The directors plan to donate some of the profit from DVD sales to the NCIP.

For more information about the NCIP, visit http://law.scu.edu/ncip

For more information about the film, visit www.witchhuntmovie.com.