Producer's Notes

The "making of" of the documentary, BORDERLINE

By Slawomir Grunberg

"Owego baby sitter charged after girl, 3, dies from heat"

"Neighbors say thermostat was set at 95 degrees"  

"Suspect disliked caring for a little girl"  

"Owego woman upset she had to work July 4"

These were the headlines in the rural Upstate New York town of Owego on June 30, 1999. This was the village's first murder case in ten years, according to Owego police chief Robert Williams. The police report stated, “….the baby-sitter, Eunice Baker, dressed little Charlotte in additional clothing, locked the child in a room, and turned the heat up to at least 90 degrees. The toddler died of hyperthermia, an abnormally high body temperature, about 4½ hours later.” Police charged 22-year-old Baker with second-degree murder. When questioned by local police, Eunice admitted to setting the thermostat to 90 degrees to kill the baby, and signed three statements confirming it. Eunice now claims that she never touched the thermostat.

I had been following this story in the local media for about a month when I was approached by the aunt and uncle of Eunice Baker. They had just seen my recent PBS/POV documentary School Prayer: A Community at War and asked me to help their niece. They felt desperate and concerned about Eunice, for whom they care very much. They drew a completely different picture of Eunice than the one created by the media. Eunice's uncle David (a Vietnam veteran who has known Eunice her whole life) said, "She wouldn't hurt the flea on a dog's back." They showed me some of Eunice’s letters that she wrote from the county jail, many of which, including colored pictures, were addressed and written to her beloved dog.

David said that Eunice's father had died in a drowning accident when she was three. Eunice's mother, Debbie Brown, had remarried, but the second marriage ended in divorce when she learned that her husband was sexually abusing Eunice, who was seven years old at the time. Sandra Verity, Eunice's aunt, is a nurse at a local nursing home. She believes that Eunice has borderline mental retardation and provided me with a confidential psychological report from Eunice’s school records. The report stated that Eunice “received an IQ in the lowest limits of the borderline range ability” and recommended “continued classification as mentally retarded with resource room assistance."

Eunice's mother Debbie lives in a run-down house with three of her other children, Michelle, Rachel, and Joshua, all of whom have different fathers. The house sits at the top of a knoll accessible only by a rocky dirt driveway. It belongs to Debbie's uncle, who does his best to help her to maintain it. The driveway is littered with abandoned cars, and a derelict mobile home is parked in the neighboring lot. When I arrived to film, I was greeted by a number of dogs and cats as well as a ferret, and I could hear the cooing of doves. There was a strong stench from the animals as they wandered freely in and out of the house. Sitting at the kitchen table, Debbie and her sister-in-law Sandy talked about their visit with Eunice at the Owego jail. It seemed that everyone was stricken by the weight of the news. All her life, Eunice Baker had tried to please people, follow orders, and avoid confrontations. "They would blame things on Eunice, and Eunice would take the blame" from her siblings, said her aunt, Sandy. “If one of the children broke a lamp, they would say 'Oh, Eunice did it.' She never stood up for herself. Eunice was always the one to want to please everybody."

I visited Debbie again at her home on Christmas Day, as the family opened gifts. On the wall, I saw a letter from Eunice written to her beloved dog, May-Ling. Debbie read the letter, in which Eunice lamented that she couldn’t be with her dog during the holidays, but promised that once she gets home, she'll never leave her side. "I love you like my own child," Debbie reads from the letter, her eyes welling up with tears. This is one of many letters Eunice sends to her dog. When she calls home, Eunice asks her mother to put the phone receiver near May-Ling's ear, so Eunice can talk to her. "She's a twelve-year-old in an adult's body," says Sandy Verity, Eunice's aunt, who has received numerous pictures of clowns from Eunice.

Before committing to making this documentary, I wanted to meet Eunice at the county jail, where she was awaiting her January trial date. After passing through the routine jail inspection, I met a smiling blond haired girl dressed in an orange prison uniform. As she sat in front of me, her light presence brought a silence to the jail room, which was filled with other offenders and their visitors. In a few minutes of conversation with Eunice, I realized that her thought process is very different and limited. When I asked her how much she was making as a babysitter, she responded, “$40 dollars.” I asked her whether that figure was per week or per day. At this point, I noticed that Eunice looked at me and tried to figure out which answer would satisfy me the most. “Forty dollars per day?” I pressed her to answer. “Yes, per day,” she responded. I later learned that Eunice was making $40 per week for her babysitting job.

Eunice’s outward appearance does not fit the common preconception of mental retardation. However, before long, my visits with her confirmed what I had been told by her aunt and uncle – this innocent looking girl seems to have some obvious mental deficiencies. Her letters written from jail read like those from a ten-year-old girl at summer camp, and represent a childlike quality of thinking. According to David, the only reason that Eunice graduated from high school in a non-specialized class is due to her mother's relentless efforts to avoid having the school classify her as mentally retarded. The social stigma attached to this label can be substantial, so her mother felt it best to try to avoid this label. With sad irony, her mother now has the burden of trying to prove just the opposite.

Before I started working on this documentary I was aware of the following facts:

• A person with mental retardation often makes no attempt to disguise what he or she has done and in fact tries hard to please authority figures.
• A mentally retarded person may actually confess to crimes that he or she has not committed and often waives his or her Miranda rights without understanding what they are doing.
• When they go to trial, their testimony may be viewed as less credible because aggressive prosecutors can make them appear unreliable.
• As a result, people with mental retardation tend to serve prison sentences for longer periods of time.
• They are typically housed with the general prison population, where they are often abused or victimized.

I felt that by making this documentary, I would be able to bring a spotlight to the widely ignored human rights of mentally handicapped people and the issue of how the legal system deals with mentally retarded persons. I thought that this story would raise important issues about social justice, mental retardation, and the law, while providing insights into frightening truths about American life and values.

From day one Eunice was tried in the media and found guilty. Until the midst of the trial, none of the articles printed had been sympathetic toward her, even though evidence supporting her innocence had surfaced. The Tioga County Court judge set her bail at $200,000 – too high for her family to pay and free her from jail. As Eunice was hustled into a police car, a friend of the victim was heard shouting, "Murderer! Murderer!” and "Die, bitch, die!" There was a palpable lynch-mob mentality outside of the courtroom during the first days of her hearing. Almost no-one but her family visited Eunice at the jail. She was abandoned by her school friends and by the majority of her former teachers. Residents of nearby towns and villages, as well as the local churches, refused to help in any efforts organized by Eunice's family to raise the money needed for the lawyer's fee.

For the newly elected district attorney, this was a very important trial, the first murder case in his career. It was also the first murder case for the young defense attorney, who represented Eunice in court. There was new evidence that the furnace in the house was faulty, which may have caused the accident, an obvious argument proving that Eunice’s statement of pre-meditated murder was coerced. How did this play against Eunice's admission to the killing, I asked myself. How did the fact that Eunice had no attorney with her during questioning, and that she was not properly advised of her Miranda rights, play out in the court? Finally, how did the fact that Eunice is (borderline) mentally retarded factor into the judge and jury’s decisions?

During one of my visits to Eunice’s family’s home, Debbie discussed the need to find the money necessary to pay for Eunice's lawyer. When Debbie had approached a county lawyer, who would represent Eunice at no cost, she realized that Eunice would have little chance of receiving good representation, since the county lawyer had already accepted Eunice’s guilt as fact. Debbie then made an early withdrawal from her retirement account in order to pay the necessary down payment to Scott Miller, a reputable lawyer from Ithaca. She didn’t know where she would find the additional funds needed to pay the rest of the legal fee.

For several years, cameras were not allowed into New York’s trial courts, but the ruling changed a week before the trial at the Tioga County Court. As a result of the new ruling that allowed Court TV to record the trial of four New York City police officers accused of murdering Amadou Diallo, Tioga County Judge Vincent Sgueglia ruled that cameras could be used inside the courtroom. It was great news for me, and a lucky turn of events for the film.

In the winter of the year 2000, after a three week trial and two days of jury deliberation, a Tioga County jury pronounced Eunice Baker guilty of second-degree murder, finding her responsible for the death of the 3-year-old child. Eunice was found guilty of turning up the heat on a hot June night and leaving the child inside the house to swelter to death intentionally. Twelve local jurors charged that Baker acted with “a depraved indifference to human life.” The verdict, announced almost a year after Eunice Baker's arrest, carried a 15 years to life sentence. Baker's IQ, which is between 73 and 78, qualifies her as having borderline mental retardation. An angry jury felt that low IQ scores did not give any indication as to whether or not Baker possessed the intelligence to realize that the child was in danger.

Before the judge announced the sentence, Eunice's lawyer read a letter written by Paul Zoltowski, Baker's high school principal and one of her few supporters, "…Eunice has every strike against her that a youth could have – poverty, limited intellectual capacity, weight, and the absence of any special talent or gift save her desire to do better, …the tragic, horrible irony in the case of Eunice Baker is that she is a victim of her belief, of trying to better herself, of attempting to please those with power in her life…"

During the sentencing, a visibly shaken Judge Vincent Sgueglia asked Eunice if she had any last words. Eunice responded, "Yes, your honor. I just want to say that I'm sorry this happened. I never wanted to hurt Charlotte. I loved that child and never meant for her to get hurt." Her voice quivered as she burst into tears. The judge sentenced Eunice to the minimum sentence that was in his discretion, fifteen years to life. He told Eunice that she had the right to appeal the conviction and asked her if she understood this. "Yes, your honor," Eunice replied. "What does it mean?" he asked her. "I don't know, your honor," she replied.

A guilty verdict was announced on April 7, 2000. It carried a 15 years to life sentence. Eunice Baker began to serve her sentence in Bedford Hills Correctional Facility, a maximum security prison for women in Upstate NY.

Carl Silverstain, a retired appeal lawyer from Monticello who was appointed by the court to handle Eunice’s case, filed for an appeal to the New York Supreme Court. It took years before anything started to move, but one day I received an e-mail from Carl informing me that the argument for the appeal would take place at the Tioga County Courthouse in Owego, NY on November 14, 2003. Five Appellate Division judges were coming to Owego and the County judge was not going to be involved. He also told me that he didn’t believe that the Appellate Division had ever allowed cameras during oral argument. I was surprised, then, when I learned that I received full access to the appellate hearing, and was permitted to film Eunice's oral argument. “This is rather unprecedented!” Scott Miller, Eunice’s defense attorney, wrote to me.

In my opinion, Attorney Silverstein has done an excellent job on this appeal and I believe he had a great deal of hope that the court would undo the jury's mistake. When I voiced my opinion to my colleagues who had witnessed the appellate hearing, I realized that I was quite alone in my optimism.

The Appellate Division announces its decisions every Thursday at around noon on its Web site. The decision regarding Eunice’s case was supposed to come within six weeks, and I regularly read the appellate decisions every Thursday after her hearing. Each week, I opened the Appellate Division site scrolling through the new decisions, and realized that among the 10-15 cases that were posted each week, only a very few had the original verdict overturned. This went on for several months. Finally, on Valentine’s Day in 2004, I opened my computer and found not 10 or 15 cases, but one titled People versus Baker. It was eight pages long and rejected the jurors’ decision of second degree murder. I called Debbie, who had no working Internet at that time, and told her to come to my office and read it herself. She came accompanied by her other daughter Rachel. I didn’t tell Debbie what I had just read, but assumed that she had figured out from my body language that the news was good. I filmed this situation and the tears of joy that came to the mother’s face. Rachel, however, still could not understand what “reduced sentence” meant and why the word “homicide” in the Appellate statement was good news for Eunice. At one point, after looking at this distressed girl, I decided to break my “fly on the wall” objectivity and told her that Eunice would be free and would be home in several weeks.

“You've got your ending! Appellate Court threw out the murder conviction and reduced to criminally negligent homicide…,” wrote Scott Miller, Eunice’s attorney. “... Eunice has served all her time – she will be re-sentenced to time served some time within the next week or two.”

We were wrong. Eunice was brought from her maximum security prison to the Owego court the very next day. I believed that it was Judge Vincent Sgueglia who sped up the process allowing Eunice to be free within hours of the court’s decision. “Wow! I'm still in shock that the system worked this time,” wrote Scott Miller, after he learned the news.

After I shared my “happy ending” news with my colleagues who were aware of my five years’ progress on the film, I received many enthusiastic e-mails and letters, some of which I quote below.

When Eunice arrived at the court the next day, chained and handcuffed, she was completely unaware what was going on. Only after her attorney Scott Miller told her that she was to be freed did she burst into tears.

While I was editing the film, Scott Miller sent me his final e-mail: “Just received this message from Carl! On April 26, 2004, DA's appeal to the Court of Appeals was denied and Eunice is free for good."

Four years later, Eunice Baker walked out of the same court where she had received a 15 to life sentence –- this time as a free woman. The same judge who sentenced her then, this time with a big smile on his face, told Eunice to go home. It was the best Valentine gift the Baker family could receive. Trying to escape reporters, the family found shelter in my van and I drove them to the new location where Eunice would stay for the next several months. Before we reached this destination, however, Eunice was greeted with hugs and tears by many of her friends who met her at the footstep of a church in the small village of Halsey Valley. Her sister Rachel, exuberant with happiness when she saw Eunice free, ran in and out of the church trying to control her emotions. Eunice’s meeting with her beloved dog that she hadn’t seen for four and a half years was another emotional moment.

Today, Debbie and her daughter Eunice are frequent visitors to my home and to my studio. They are eagerly awaiting the release of the film, and are hoping that it will help others like Eunice to win their cases. I have received an e-mail from a brother of a person whose story sounds similar to Eunice Baker’s and who was sentenced because he signed a confession admitting to a crime that he didn’t commit.

Reactions to the news on the Borderline’s Happy Ending

Slawomir, this is SO WONDERFUL!!!  I am so thrilled to hear this news I can’t even tell you! Please send my regards to Eunice and her family and know that we deeply believe in your project and know that your involvement with this case made a tremendous difference.  If only we could clone you! 

Kate Black, Program Officer, Criminal Justice Initiative of the Open Society Institute

You, as a representative of the artist community, should be very proud. The artist is more than an observer and a recorder. The artist can make the world a more humane dwelling place (James Baldwin).  By documenting events, you have sought out the truth and influenced social justice. These ideals are more than abstractions; they speak to the lives of real people. I did have the opportunity to read the decision, and believe strongly that your influence has righted a wrong. So, thank you for Eunice and her family and thank you for making a better world for all of us. 

Dave, High School Teacher of the school from which Eunice graduated

That's the happiest ending to a documentary I've heard in a long time.  Congrats!

Roger Weisberg, Academy Award®-nominated producer

What a wonderful ending. You must be so thrilled to have been a part of her story and to be there to capture this wonderful ending. I think it makes your story more complex in that it reveals that while the system can make mistakes, it also has the ability to right itself. You have a story that indicts the faults of the system and also shows what works. In terms of pure storytelling and emotional impact you couldn't ask for a better ending. I think your story will inspire and sensitize people to think more deeply about how our criminal justice system prosecutes those who are mentally handicapped.

Tod Lending, Emmy award winner, Academy Award®-nominated producer

I recall you telling me about the film as we drove through New York State in 1999. Your efforts, dedication and now successful story with the family makes me think on how you perceived already back then in 1999 the innocence of that girl…Now that the story has come to a completion, it honors also your fairness in speaking about what works in the system, what not, and how it manages to correct itself if challenged in a proper way as to its own mistakes. That is indeed a very valuable lesson, but I think you yourself have contributed greatly to this, thanks to your fairness and dedication. I am glad to be able to share the good news!

Hatto Fisher, Athens, Greece (Department of Cultural Affairs, 2004 Summer Olympics