Indictment: The McMartin Trial | Hallmark Channel | 06.28.2004

This Oliver Stone-produced docudrama documents the events in the famous trial of the McMartin family, owners of a preschool in Manhattan Beach, CA. The main defendant, Ray McMartin Buckey, was accused of sexually abusing the children and there were allegations of child pornography and Satanic rituals. The McMartin trial was one of the most watched trials in history. It was one of the first trials to be televised. It was also one of the most expensive trials in US history, costing a whopping $15M over a span of seven years, compared to the $8M that the OJ Simpson trial cost a few years later. Most importantly, the McMartin trial effectively underscored the frailty and pliability of juvenile witnesses, in this case preschool children. In hindsight, it was speculated that the interview techniques used by the Children's Institute International organization were leading and led the children to experience false memories.

However, the McMartin-Buckeys' lives were ruined. Impoverished because of the closure of their school and considered social pariahs, the McMartin matriarchs are now dead and take their despair at the foul hand dealt them to their grave. People still considered them guilty, despite accusations that were getting more and more bizarre. Finally, the woman who first filed a case against the McMartin family, Judy Johnson, was found to be an alcoholic and a paranoid schizophrenic, a detail that was withheld from the defense, the revelation of which was a deciding factor in the acquittal.

James Woods plays the brash defense attorney Danny Davis, who gets his clients acquitted through sheer perseverance and a few tricks; Mercedes Ruehl is the lead prosecutor Lael Rubin, who is portrayed as misguided and a little manic in this movie. The drama focuses on the trial and the effects on the defendants, especially Ray and his mother Peggy. Portrayed by a listless Henry Thomas and Shirley Knight, respectively, the duo doesn't really elicit much sympathy from the viewers, unlike Sada Thompson (portraying Peggy's mother Virginia McMartin) and Alison Elliott, who plays Ray's sister Peggy Ann. The script is quite bland and not exploratory; it seems to be trying to be incendiary and/or cautionary but ends up falling a bit flat. I honestly watched it just to see what would happen--I almost fell asleep midway. I realize now that I could have just visited this website and read about the whole thing instead. That wouldn't have been much of a waste of time.