Synopsis
Indictment: The McMartin Trial (1995) is an HBO television film you can watch online on iFILM, directed by Mick Jackson.
In 1983, a family running a preschool in Manhattan Beach, California found themselves at the center of a child abuse investigation that would stretch seven years — one of the longest and most expensive criminal prosecutions in American history. The case built largely on videotaped interviews conducted by an unlicensed therapist who used leading questions on the children until she got the answers she was looking for. James Woods plays the defense attorney dismantling the process piece by piece; Mercedes Ruehl is the prosecutor who believes in it. Both are convincing, and the film refuses to settle the question for the viewer in advance. Henry Thomas and Shirley Knight round out a cast that stays inside the ambiguity the material demands.
All charges were eventually dropped. What the McMartin case left behind was a lasting change in how American courts handle testimony from children. Stream Indictment: The McMartin Trial (1995) online on iFILM.
Starring
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