About This Show
Charles Grodin heads a cast of six in a special one night reading of The Prosecution of Brandon Hein. Gordon Edelstein directs.
A symbol of injustice in our legal system, Brandon Hein remains incarcerated after eleven years for a crime another man admitted to committing. So what did Brandon Hein do? He was drunk and got into a fight that involved six boys where one boy stabbed another who bled to death. The state did not claim that Brandon killed anyone, but under the felony murder rule if a jury decides that Brandon and his friends went to a fort in the backyard of a house in Agoura Hills, CA to steal marijuana, not just to smoke it or buy it as the boys claimed, Brandon could be convicted of intended robbery. That is what the jury decided. Legal scholars have said the sentence for Brandon Hein is one of the most outrageous applications of the felony murder rule they have ever seen. Actor, commentator, author and playwright Charles Grodin pored through trial transcripts and interviews to create a nonfiction play that is an incredible story of injustice, political ambition and vengeance.