NIGHT IN WEST TEXAS

In 1981, James Reyos, a young gay Apache man from Odessa, Texas, was pressured into confessing to the murder of a Catholic priest and sentenced to 38 years in prison. Nearly four decades later, armed with new evidence, justice-driven lawyers from The Innocence Project of Texas fight to clear his name.

With NIGHT IN WEST TEXAS, Peabody-winning journalist and Emmy-nominated documentarian Deborah S. Esquenazi transcends the tropes of true crime to expose decades of systemic injustice stacked against marginalized communities. The result is a powerful and deeply moving portrait of a man seeking redemption and a legal system reckoning with its failures.

“In this nuanced deconstruction of the true crime genre, director Deborah S. Esquenazi continues her biting exploration of the ways the judicial system is stacked against minority groups, and how the damage it creates cannot be undone with a simple overturning.” – Jorge Molina, Industry Manager & Programmer

Deborah S. Esquenazi