Premiere of $100 a Day
WHEN:
Wednesday, February 18
6:00 p.m. – Film screening
6:40 p.m. – Panel discussion
Reception to follow
WHERE:
Williman Room
Benson Memorial Center
Santa Clara University
500 El Camino Real
Santa Clara, CA
The Commonwealth Club of California and the Northern California Innocence Project at Santa Clara University cordially invite you to the premiere of a new documen-tary: $100 a Day. The film tells a story of wrongful conviction and imprisonment, political partisanship, and the difficulty of righting the wrongs in our justice system. Admission is free.
On December 10, 1991, East Palo Alto resident Rick Walker was sentenced to 26 years in prison for a murder he did not commit. Linked to the crime by false testimony and questionable legal tactics, Walker would spend the next 12 years in some of California’s most dangerous prisons. Once exonerated, he faced yet another barrier to justice: the California State Legislature.
Entitled to one hundred dollars for every day he spent wrongly imprisoned, Walker’s attempts to receive his just due became caught in the partisan battle over the 2003 California budget. In the early morning hours on the last night of that year’s Legislative session, State Assemblyman (now State Senator) Joe Simitian challen-ged his colleagues to put aside their political differences and “show 35 million Californians that we have the right stuff.”
This premiere showing of $100 a Day will be followed by a panel discussion moderated by Cookie Ridolfi, Executive Director of the Northern California Innocence Project. The panel will include:
• Rick Walker
• Alison Tucher, Partner, Morrison and Foerster, LLP, the attorney who was largely responsible for Rick’s exoneration
• Jim Sanders, Senior Writer, Sacramento Bee, who witnessed and covered the political battle over Walker’s 2003 state claim