Dear Richard,
Your movie “God Save Texas: Hometown Prison,” which debuted recently on HBO, was joyfully upsetting for me. Kudos to you for loving Huntsville, the complex setting of your formative high school years. Kudos for not moving on, for coming back time and again to the life and culture there in your many films. Kudos for loving the people there but not looking away, bringing your unflinching lens to the things they find hard to see. Spoiler alert: This is a movie review about the human subjects of your film.
Working as a postconviction capital defense attorney for almost three decades, I drove through Huntsville many times a year en route to visit clients on death rows at the nearby Ellis and Polunsky units. Ultimately, upon entering the town on U.S. 190, I would veer off to the north on parallel streets to avoid passing and having to look at your hometown prison, the Walls Unit, where some of my clients had been killed. Unlike the many Huntsville residents who drive daily by the Walls, paying it no attention, I chose to avoid it as an aspect of my self-care.
