Capítulo 16 de 20 · 3'49"
A man on death row describes a system that only talks about killing him. "All they want to do is talk about how they're going to kill you," he says, and the days blur into a bad dream. Later, a defense push for a new trial stalls, and the witness who testified walks away.
❝ Monólogo · 19 frases The Only Thing They Talk About Is Killing You
❝ Monólogo · 12 frases The lawyer on the failed motion
Legal procedure becomes a list of dead ends, and the jargon cannot hide the defeat.
The D.A. Who Mocked Him in Court
Randall Adams describes life under a death sentence: a numbing wait, endless talk of the electric chair, and a district attorney who discusses only how he will be executed. His lawyers file a motion for a new trial. The Millers' claim to reward money is ruled impeaching testimony and kept out. At the hearing, Adams says, the prosecutor cut him off and mocked his 'big fat nose.'
The chapter is about how a death sentence grinds a person down and how the machinery around it stays indifferent. The prisoner describes the numbness — "It's like a bad dream. You want to wake up, but you can't do it" — and the horror stories about electrocution that he hears 'fifteen times, 20 times a day.' What the prosecution wants is simple: "All they want to do is talk about how they're going to kill you." The film then follows the appeals. A motion for a new trial is filed, but the Millers' motive — that they expected reward money and 'didn't care whether they saw anything or not' — is ruled impeaching testimony, too late. At the hearing, the D.A. is 'hard-nosed,' cuts the witness off, and jokes about his nose. "It really didn't," someone concludes. "Didn't help the guy at all."
A1–C2 es la escala MCER. Las tarjetas por encima del nivel elegido se atenúan y la reproducción no se pausa en ellas.
“It's like a bad dream. You want to wake up, but you can't do it.”
A plain simile turns years of waiting into a dream the speaker cannot wake from.
Informal
“He don't give a damn if you're innocent.”
The broken grammar makes the indifference sound lived-in and total.
Informal
“All they want to do is talk about how they're going to kill you.”
It reduces a whole system to one appetite: talking about your death.
Informal
“I didn't have any idea what happened to him.”
A simple denial of knowledge that quietly admits how little he cared.
Neutral
“When we went to court that day, the District Attorney was hard-nosed.”
One compound adjective paints the whole courtroom: tough, closed, and not on your side.
Neutral
“That's the only thing that they cared about and talked about.”
The doubled verb phrase makes their single-mindedness audible.
Neutral
You have a D.A... he doesn't talk about... when they convict you or how they convict you... he's talking about how he's going to kill you. He don't give a damn if you're innocent. He don't give a damn if you're guilty. He's talking about killing you. You get numb. You get.... It's like a bad dream. You want to wake up, but you can't do it. Fifteen times, 20 times a day, I hear this same story... about what happens when a man is electrocuted. His eyeballs pop out. His fingernails pop out. His toenails pop out. He bleeds out of every orifice he's got. They don't care.... They don't care. All they want to do is talk about how they're going to kill you. That's the only thing that they cared about and talked about. At that point, that's all they're wanting.
Dennis filed the motion for a new trial... then we filed an amended motion for a new trial. About 20 days later, we were to have a hearing on it. Both Robert Miller and his wife testified there. But we could not bring out the fact... that they had said that they were gonna get that reward money... and that they didn't care whether they saw anything or not... but their car was too steamed up. We were not allowed to get any of that in... because it was held that it was impeaching testimony... and therefore it came too late. We kept running into blank walls.
Siguiente · 17set the wheels of justice in motionLa escena: The Case the Supreme Court ReversedAfter testifying he says he 'was gone' and never concerned himself with it, then admits maybe he didn't want to know. It reads as guilt or deliberate avoidance about the man he helped convict.
The defense wanted to show they expected reward money and couldn't see through a steamed-up car, but the court ruled it impeaching testimony offered too late, so the jury never heard it.
It's evidence meant to attack a witness's credibility rather than prove the facts. The court called the Millers' statements impeaching testimony and said it came too late to be used.
The speaker says the D.A. told him that if he had 'kept my big fat nose out of their business,' the Millers would be better off — a taunt that the case was none of his concern.
No. The hearing goes nowhere: the key evidence is excluded, the D.A. is hard-nosed, and the speaker ends by agreeing it did no good — 'Didn't help the guy at all.'
