Noel Schwerin 
Backbone Media, 1327 Church St, San Francisco, CA 94114 
schwerin@backbonemedia.org 

TRUTH & JUSTICE is a three-part, three-hour documentary Special for national broadcast on PBS. Produced by Backbone Media (a public benefit, nonprofit charitable corporation*) in association with Oregon Public Broadcasting, TRUTH & JUSTICE will stimulate the public to think critically about the real strengths and important limits of science both in framing and in resolving social conflict. In three parts, the program will profile individuals - judges and scientists, lay people and lawyers - as they grapple with questions of science and law in a handful of actual cases. In Part One, Novel Cases will demonstrate how new technologies - particularly genetic technologies - create unexpected, unprecedented legal conflicts which challenge fundamental legal, ethical and social principles. In Part Two, Judging Science will look at what happens when new laws oblige the courts to distinguish between "good" and "bad" science. In Part Three, Due Process will examine science as one "way of knowing the world," often in conflict or competition with other ways of knowing in the courts. 

In the style of A Question of Genes, the PI's recent award-winning, DOE-funded PBS program, each hour will closely observe two or three pairs of people as they grapple with science and technology in a handful of actual legal cases. Through the interactions of these central "characters," the program will explore the critical interplay of science and the courts. By profiling people at the center of actual conflicts, it will use compelling, accessible human drama as its vehicle. 

Use of the DOE funds has focused on four goals; half has been spent on the first three goals, and the rest has been reserved for the fourth goal: (1) development of the conceptual framework and specific story content and treatment for the program; (2) development of a substantial body of institutional and individual support for the project, including an active and distinguished Board of Advisors, a community of academic and professional support and advice, an experienced production and promotion team, a distribution plan, and direct and ongoing relationships with story participants; (3) development toward other funding, including extensive foundation research and the submission of proposals to targeted foundations and federal agencies; (4) the production of a story from the program to aid in fund-raising and to launch the project. 

*Formerly NoelEye Documentaries