Sitting in Limbo tells the story of a young, Black, Midwestern college student who was arrested and jailed for murder in a historic felony case. The film explores the incident, his unique family upbringing, and his failure to receive a fair trial in a biased justice system, community, and media landscape while he continues to fight for freedom decades later.
The documentary Sitting in Limbo tells the story of a young, Black, Midwestern college student who was arrested and jailed for murder in a historic felony case. The film explores the incident, his unique family upbringing, and his failure to receive a fair trial in a biased justice system, community, and media landscape while he continues to fight for freedom decades later. Sitting in Limbo thrusts us back to an all-too-familiar Midwest town in the 1990s, a city awash with racial tension. Young Black men were routinely killed in police custody, Black families were blocked from moving into white neighborhoods, race riots in schools were common, and the Ku Klux Klan marched in public.
It was in this climate that our protagonist took an impromptu ride with friends and things took a turn for the worse. The next day he was arrested for murder. His father, a Vietnam War veteran with PTSD who had a history of radical activism and made provocative public statements throughout the trial, became the focal point of the press. In a miscarriage of justice, our subject inexplicably emerged as the focus of the trial, while the actual murderer served as the prosecution’s star witness.
Sitting in Limbo is not a true crime drama, but rather an intimate portrait of a man caught up in something he could not get out of, a bad situation exacerbated by generational trauma, and the burdens placed on his family to fight for his freedom. It examines our notion of fairness and empathy towards incarcerated individuals, ultimately interrogating public perception of the purpose of the justice system and its goals. It also follows the real-time fight for justice headed by a team of prominent lawyers.
The Sitting in Limbo production team shot a compelling trailer that is being used to fundraise during this stage of development, with production set to commence in 2023.
