To some people, Alfredo "Fred" Cruz was one of the greatest civil rights activists in all of Texas, and one of the few unsung heroes in American history (he doesn't even have a Wikipedia entry, a sure sign you're being slept on). To others, he was "the most dangerous man in the Texas prison system". The documentary Writ Writer makes director Susanne Mason's views on the subject crystal clear -- and aims to correct the fact that, some 30 years after his groundbreaking and difficult work was completed, Cruz remains largely unknown even in Texas, let alone the United State, although hundreds of thousands of people in every state in the union have benefited from his toil and sacrifice.
Born poor on the bad side of San Antonio, Alfredo Cruz got hooked on heroin at a young age (several members of his family were dealers) and, after accidentally killing his best friend in a shooting accident, went into a downward spiral that eventually led to his conviction for robbery. Handed a ridiculously long sentence, Cruz -- who always maintained his innocence -- could find no one willing to defend a wild youth with no money and dark skin, so he had no choice but to take up his own cause, teaching himself law and filing appeals on his own behalf. It wasn't an easy task; at the time, it was frowned upon for anyone to read law, and Cruz, who rapidly developed a reputation as a troublemaker for daring to take an interest in his own affairs, was often defeated in court when prison officials would confiscate his books, papers and legal briefs, leaving him unable to mount a convincing defense. Not content to take up his own cause, Cruz also became a "writ writer", or jailhouse lawyer, filing appeals on behalf of other prisoners -- an activity that was, astonishingly, illegal under Texas law at the time. Subjected to brutality and endlessly cruel punishment by prison officials, Cruz nonetheless managed to overturn the law, making it possible for prisoners all over the country to gain valuable civil rights; he also secured his own release after a successful challenge to his conviction, and in a high point to his ultimately tragic life, ended up marrying the New York attorney who had helped him win his case -- a woman twice his own age.
Despite its compelling narrative and the fascinating excerpts from Cruz's memoirs that appear throughout the film, how well you'll respond to
Writ Writer depends entirely on how interested you are in Cruz's story. Mason is not a visually gifted director, and the documentary almost never strays from talking head mode. It's also got zero chance of a theatrical release, but you will get a chance to see it this summer just the same: it's being featured as part of PBS' "Independent Lens" series. Many years in the making,
Writ Writer is definitely worth seeing for its powerful subject matter and its illumination of how our modern penal system was formed. Susanne Mason won't displace Errol Morris as anyone's favorite documentarian, but this is a story interesting enough to spare an hour on.