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When the CD was released, some supporters worried that support from rock musicians who made their livings being “bad” might muddy the Web site’s more mainstream efforts on the inmates’ behalf. Those concerns were underlined when Trey Parker, cocreator ofSouth Park, one of television’s most irreverent shows, joined the list of celebrities supporting the West Memphis Three. “Bad publicity,” fretted one supporter, “is what got them locked up in the first place.” But the storm of concern blew over—partly, no doubt, because it’s hard to harm the image of someone who’s already on death row—and the movement for the West Memphis Three widened.

“Back Channel Conversations”

But a columnist for the state’s main daily paper, theArkansas Democrat-Gazette, was not troubled by such concerns. In a column published in February 2001, Philip Martin, the paper’s chief writer on cultural affairs, noted the support that was building nationally for the three Arkansas inmates, including that from musicians and certain “Hollywood types.” Martin wrote that he realized that many of the West Memphis Three’s supporters were “well-meaning and sincere,” and that “reasonable, decent people can disagree.” That said, Martin informed his readers that he believed that Damien, Jason, and Jessie were the killers.

For several reasons, Martin’s opinion piece was an important comment on the case, in that it reflected attitudes prevalent in Arkansas six years after the trials. The piece acknowledged a litany of “questions” about the case—questions that Martin said he found “troubling.” At the same time, it echoed the confidence that Martin, like many Arkansans, maintained: that justice had been served.

Martin went to lengths to acknowledge the supporters’ concerns. He admitted that, like them, he had not been convinced of the defendants’ guilt “beyond a reasonable doubt.” He said he initially had had “some misgivings about the way the police identified the suspects,” and that he had been “troubled by the Satanist hysteria surrounding the case.” He said he knew that the Arkansas judicial system was “capable of atrocity,” that it was “probably capable of convicting and even executing the wrong person,” and that the West Memphis case had been “messy” and “largely circumstantial.” He said he realized that “confessions can be false,” that Jessie’s confession was “hardly convincing evidence,” and that the teenager probably had “some sort of cognitive disorder in addition to an extremely low IQ.” Martin admitted that he disliked “the state’s insistence on dragging a self-styled expert on Satanic rituals” into Damien and Jason’s trial, and that “it probably would have been better to try those two separately.” He wrote that he understood that “police routinely cut corners,” that “there are innocent (or at least ‘not guilty’) people in our prisons,” and that “if you are poor and friendless you are treated differently than if you are wealthy and well connected.”

Nevertheless, Martin wrote, two juries had found the defendants guilty and he had seen no convincing evidence that their verdicts were wrong. “It makes a good story—,” he wrote, “yokel cops crucify the misfit. It could sell some books. But it ignores the facts.” Martin did not cite what “facts” he believed had been ignored. Rather, he explained that his own doubts about the case had been laid to rest by “a couple of back channel conversations” with people whom he trusted. Without divulging what in those conversations he had found so persuasive, Martin wrote, “Their word was good enough for me. The cops had the right guys.”390

Then Martin sounded the deepest theme of the case, though he did it superficially, as though it were all the explanation needed. While granting that he “wouldn’t mind too much” if Damien, Jason, and Jessie “somehow” managed to get new trials, Martin wrote that he didn’t “much care” if their case was never reviewed. “While I’m opposed to capital punishment,” he wrote, “I don’t think Damien Echols is a particularly good argument