Convicted
and
Confused
The law gave LaVar Sinks the right to defend his life. Missouri gave him life plus thirty years.
A case no jury heard
Videographer Mark Mauer sat for hours with LaVar Sinks, his family, an eyewitness, and experts in Missouri self-defense law and local concealed-carry regulations. He strung the interviews end to end in a single file. Kidney cancer took his life before he could shape them into a story.
Convicted and Confused finishes his work. LaVar speaks for himself, unhurried and unguarded. The people who know him, the witness who saw what happened, and the professionals who know the law fill in what the courtroom left out. Together they build a case for a man the state locked away for an act the law promises every citizen the right to commit: the defense of his own life.
A spare modal score put together largely in a one-day session led by Brody, muted trumpet over a slow pulse, gives his quiet dignity room to breathe.
It gives LaVar the hearing a courtroom denied him.
One case.
Thousands like it.
Behind LaVar stand thousands of talented, decent young men who fill the cells of a prison-industrial complex that profits from their time. The short serves as a back-door pilot for a documentary series that follows them, one case per episode.
A debt of mine
Call me what I am: a social justice poseur. I buy the merch more often than I march. A few years back, my confessional play And… Again took aim at exactly that failure, the comfort white middle-class America takes while a racist system grinds on. A city arts council shut it down before opening night.
Then LaVar Sinks's story fell into my hands, half-built. Mark Mauer sat with LaVar, his family, an eyewitness, and experts in Missouri self-defense law and the local concealed-carry regulations for hours of interviews. He strung them end to end in a single file. Kidney cancer took his life before he could build a proper story from them. The footage waited for someone to take up the work.
The law promises every person the right to defend their own life. LaVar Sinks exercised that right, and the state answered with life plus thirty years. His own words, the words of those who know him as part of a family and part of a community, the words of living witnesses and informed professionals make the case no jury heard, unhurried and unguarded. Behind LaVar stand thousands of talented, decent young men who fill the cells of a prison-industrial complex that profits from their time.
Convicted and Confused finishes what a dying man began. It gives LaVar the hearing a courtroom denied him. And it settles a debt of mine. The marches manage to go on without me. This film could not.
Comedian, produced playwright, and Hollywood screenwriter. Dylan Brody holds the Stanley Drama Award and reached the semifinals of the Nicholl Fellowship. He trained at RADA, wrote the books Relatively Painless and Laughs Last, and released five spoken-word albums on Stand Up! Records. He runs Active Voice Productions, a home for stories that move.
Mark sat across from LaVar Sinks and the people who know his story, and he recorded the interviews at the heart of this film. Kidney cancer took him before he could finish it. This film carries his work to the audience he meant it for.