Innocence Project Artists’ Committee Co-Chair Tony Goldwyn recently sat down with
Mother Jones
magazine to promote the fourth season of the ABC hit drama
Scandal
. In addition to speaking about his starring role as the leader of the free world, Goldwyn also discussed his inspiration for creating WEtv’s first scripted drama,
The Divide
, about a powerful district attorney whose career is jeopardized by an investigation conducted by a fictional innocence clinic. He says:
I directed and produced
Conviction
, a movie about a man who spent 18 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. I got to know Innocence Project Co-Founder Barry Scheck very well — he’s a character in the movie — and I got very passionate about the cause. It’s just so inherently dramatic. My co-producer said, “There’s a TV series in this.” Then Richard LaGravenese and I came up with the idea of a prosecutor who gets it wrong. I never wanted to do a polemic. What interested me was the moral divide: In trying to do the right thing, where’s the line you cross?
Please ask Tony to contact me! I have a wrongful conviction story, that sounds like science fiction! My son’s case is now before the wrongful conviction panel embodied by Lake County Illinois State’s Attorney, Mike Netheim! He now has DNA proof, that my son was not there during a rape that he was convicted of in 1992! Hopefully in the next couple of weeks he will be exonerated or at least given a new trial! He has been incarcerated for 25 years! I am confident Tony will find this case worthy of him at least looking at it! Thank him for his time and contacting me! Ruthe Wille, Imlucky56@me.com, 847-217-0992.