Raising Hell. The Life of A.J. Bannister

Filmmaker Stephen Trombley caused quite a stir in 1991 with his documentary the execution protocol, in which he followed the execution team in the Potosi Correctional Center in Missouri during their procedural preparations of an execution. The central figure of this film was inmate A.J. Bannister, who by that time had been on death row for ten years, awaiting the execution of his death sentence. Raising hell. The life of A.J. Bannister can be considered the sequel to this documentary. The film is based on three years of research and reconstructs Bannister's life on the basis of testimonies by family members, friends and enemies. The main issue is the question what actually happened in 1982. According to the police Bannister acted as a contract killer and killed someone, but according to Bannister it was a quarrel with an ill-fated d‚nouement: "I accidentally took a man's life during a struggle". After having re-investigated the case, filmmaker Stephen Trombley believes that contract killing is out of the question. He thinks Bannister is guilty of second degree murder, a crime which does not carry the death sentence. The film follows Bannister and his relatives in the period when the day of the execution draws near. The climax is reached in the night of 6 to 7 December 1994, when the Supreme Court decides to repeal the death sentence two hours before the execution.