In all of your investigations, what is it you’ve found most often impedes justice from being done, particularly in cases of wrongful conviction?
Ego. It’s always ego. The reason it takes so long to get a hearing is because the judge that oversaw your original trial doesn’t think anything wrong happened. You have to then fight for years to get a new judge. And even when you get a new judge, it takes so long for there to be evidence hearings — or a new trial, if you’re one in a million and lucky enough to get a new trial. It’s that you’re having to wait out the career of the district attorney or the sheriff that put you there.
When we first started doing this show, I spoke a lot about how I work in an industry where, after every single take, a director will come up to you and give you a note. And basically, the gist is, “Do it better. Try again.” Unfortunately, in the justice system, they very rarely invite that kind of constructive criticism. So, you really are waiting out the egos and the careers of the people who put you in prison.
Power and privilege are also so frequently at the core of these cases . . .
Ineffective counsel is actually a very serious problem in the United States, because the prosecutor is given this big, huge budget to make their case. The defence is not. Unless you are independently wealthy, your ability to fight the machine is . . . you’re just losing from day one. And that’s not to say there aren’t real bad guys out there. There are, and it is important to hold people accountable for real crimes. But it’s very easy to see on our show, because it’s in a small town, how much power is involved and how much weight is put on the crimes of vulnerable members of the community vs. the crimes that are committed by powerful people; they’re oftentimes doing drugs, selling drugs, buying and selling women . . . It’s incredible how vilified the crimes are if you’re poor and how acceptable they are when you’re wealthy.
Is it ever tough to get the officials who were involved in these cases to sit down with you?
What we have found is that the people who go into law enforcement because they believe it to be a noble career — a career that is of public service — they’re oftentimes the ones that feel most betrayed by a system that isn’t necessarily about justice, but about wins and losses. We’ve had our most emotional interviews with the people you would expect it least from. That’s been kind of shocking to me, to see how emotional law enforcement gets when they’re confronted with their profession hurting people; you know, you go into [that career] thinking you’re gonna be a hero in your town, and then you see how that domino effect affects people who are the most vulnerable. And it’s a hurtful thing to have to analyze.
Have scripted cop shows and films given people a false impression of how the system actually works?
I would say that trend goes back to the 1970s, when you had Dirty Harry and this idea that the “rogue cop” was the hero. I think it’s been incredibly harmful to law enforcement in the United States — and we’re seeing that played out on the streets today. The glorification of these kinds of cops — whether it’s in true crime shows or scripted shows — the idea that you always get it right is wrong. It’s so, so wrong, and it’s done such a disservice to what the public as a whole thinks about how, “You find your suspect, you arrest them — and obviously that’s who it must be, otherwise you wouldn’t have arrested them.”
So, yeah, I do think that kind of programming has been problematic, which is why I wanted to make this show. I wanted to show these beautiful, amazing places to live where things can still go wrong — where the mythology of it being safe is dispelled a little bit, so that it can be better. Small communities are a microcosm of what’s happening on a much bigger level. And if we can fix it on a local level, then we can fix it on a state level, and then we can fix it on a federal level.
Beyond simply making a compelling television show, what did you hope to achieve with It Couldn’t Happen Here?
I mean, I really struggled with true crime [as a viewer] because every show was, “Here’s the bad thing that happened. Ooh, wasn’t that terrible?” It felt like voyeurism. And then, “Here are the cops and they’re gonna tell you who the suspects are, and then they’re gonna tell you exactly who did it. And then that’s it. Ta-da! End of show.” I found that narrative to be false when a childhood friend of mine was murdered and the way that he was depicted in the media wasn’t the person I knew. I found it to be false when a woman who lived in my community in the Hudson Valley was depicted as a femme fatale for killing her abusive partner. And when you see these buzz words, when you see those red flags, you know that the narrative is manipulated in a way to make you feel like you’re on the “good guy” side. “You’re with the cops, you’re with the prosecutor, we’re all on the same team.”
What we really try to do on our show is, we talk to the cops and we talk to the prosecutors and we talk to the families — and we will literally talk to anybody who was a part of the story who will speak to us. I’ve spoken to a man who I believe murdered his wife. But he picked up the phone, so I had to have a conversation with him that was incredibly uncomfortable. We lay all the cards on the table and know that our audience is so intelligent that they will be able to decipher for themselves what is the truth and what isn’t.
What was it like sussing out how to approach these very delicate interviews?
It’s probably the most natural job I’ve ever had — I think acting was the hardest thing for me. You know, I lucked into a job at MTV two months after graduating high school, and I joke that I wasn’t necessarily allowed up in the studio with the celebrities. I was the girl down in the pit, in Times Square, on the street with the people. That excitement was what I fed off of. Being able to speak to people and connect with them is something that I cherish. I think storytelling, particularly in the documentary space, is about creating an intimacy . . .
I really wanted the show to feel like you’re sitting in your community diner with someone that you know. I wanted it to feel “small town.” I didn’t want it to feel like a journalist from a big city coming to town and exploiting someone for their story. So, we don’t have a hair-and-makeup team on our show, and there is no wardrobe and there are no breaks for touch-ups. It really is just filming a six-hour conversation, and hearing step-by-step what was important to them in this story. That’s going to change depending on who you’re talking to. When you’re talking to law enforcement, they’re really gonna hone in on the details of the case and the clues. Whereas when you’re talking to a family member, they’re going to really narrow into the nuances of who the person was, and why the story doesn’t make sense to them. I think all of those factors are so important in giving a 360 view of an injustice.
Turning to another recent project, what was it like becoming a podcaster and revisiting One Tree Hill with Drama Queens?
That was actually a singularly weird experience, because those were probably the most traumatic years of my life. [Editor’s Note: In 2017, several years after One Tree Hill went off the air, allegations of harassment were levelled against creator Mark Schwahn by cast and crew.] And doing a weekly therapy session where I had to sort through what was going on — on-camera and off-camera — and doing it in such a public way . . . I don’t know that I thought it through. But what I can say is that I feel so settled now having done it and having aired the dirty laundry and really been able to revisit the good stuff — and celebrate the good stuff with a large group of fans. That felt cathartic, and I’m glad I went through the process. But I won’t pretend it was easy.
True Crime Story: It Couldn’t Happen Here, streaming on Sundance Now and AMC+
MEMORABLE ROLES:
Winning a contest fresh out of high school, Hilarie Burton Morgan got her break as a VJ back in MTV’s heyday, introducing music videos and manning the interview mic for Total Request Live. She soon transitioned to acting with a six-season gig as Peyton Sawyer on beloved teen drama One Tree Hill (a career-launching yet traumatic experience she recently unpacked, warts and all, as co-host of the Drama Queens podcast alongside OTH co-stars Bethany Joy Lenz and Sophia Bush). The actress furthermore turned heads as sly insurance investigator Sara Ellis on White Collar and via recurring flashback appearances in the Walking Dead universe — sharing the screen with real-life husband Jeffrey Dean Morgan, playing his character Negan’s departed wife/barbed-wire baseball bat namesake, Lucille.
CURRENT GIG:
An actor by trade, Hilarie Burton Morgan has recently dedicated her onscreen charisma to a new pursuit: justice. It Couldn’t Happen Here sees Hilarie apply a more human approach to the oft-sensationalized true crime genre — visiting small towns across the U.S. to shed light on murder cases where flaws in the system have led to sketchy verdicts, wrongful convictions, and closure too long denied for profoundly shaken communities.