Live! From Death Row (1992 TV Movie)

Bruce Davison: Laurence Dvorak

Quotes 

• Alana Powers : Hi Kenny, you mind if I call you Kenny?

  Kenny Nevins : Yeah, uh, you think my mom was watching?

  Alana Powers : She's concerned about you, I'm sure she's watching.

  Laurence Dvorak : Ask him how old he is.

  Alana Powers : How old are you?

  Kenny Nevins : I'm 26 last July, guess I won't make 27.

  Laurence Dvorak : Ask him how old he was when he got here.

  Alana Powers : You know, a good producer lets his people do their job, Mr. Dvorak, if you want to do the interview, you go right ahead, I'll watch.

  Laurence Dvorak : Oh sorry, I overstepped my bounds here didn't I? Yeah please, proceed Miss Powers.

  Alana Powers : Now you were convicted when you were 15 and tried as an adult, is that correct?

  Kenny Nevins : Yeah, because of what they said I did.

  Alana Powers : Tell us what happened.

  Kenny Nevins : Well, Pepper Michaels, he was a kid from my block, he's here too, only he's in lockup cuz he had a better lawyer than me. Pepper and me was high and stoned, you know, and we wanted some munchies, but we didn't have no money, and the fella behind the counter, he wouldn't give us no credit, you know, all I wanted was some munchies.

  Alana Powers : He wouldn't give you any credit so you killed him?

  Kenny Nevins : The fella got all chopped up, but I knew him. Ozzie. He kept this uh, meat cleaver right behind the meat counter. He got chopped up with his own cleaver.

  Alana Powers : And you did it?

  Kenny Nevins : Guess so.

  Alana Powers : And now you want to die.

  Kenny Nevins : [nods]  Yeah.

  Alana Powers : Why? Why, Kenny? You still have an appeal pending, don't you?

  Kenny Nevins : [sighs]  Suppose my appeal goes through, and look, I ain't never gonna see those streets again except as an old man. I mean my appeal goes through, yeah, yeah, I might get bumped off the row, life in the lockup. Life in the lockup, man, a guy like me, hey, I won't last 2 seconds in there, I'm fresh meat to those guys. You got a choice, man, 20 years in the lockup, or dead.

  [tears up] 

  Kenny Nevins : Which would you choose, ma'am? I'd rather be dead.

• Laurence Dvorak : Bring the camera over here. Turn it on. Mr. Lockhart, Albert, has been in this situation before, haven't you, Albert? See, Albert's first year here at the penitentiary was an eventful one: there was a riot in cell block 11, the prisoners took hostages, Albert had just been at the penitentiary oh 3 months I think it was. He was a fresh young man out of military service, heard he was one of the good guys, used to treat all the prisoners like human beings.

  Lockart : [grunts in pain]  I learned better.

  Laurence Dvorak : Albert was taken hostage, they didn't hurt him at first but then negotiations broke off and, well the inmates got a little restless.

  Lockart : Alright, Dvorak, I'll shut up, just turn the camera off.

  Laurence Dvorak : Well I'm sure the viewing audience wants to hear your story, Albert. You see for the next 17 days, until negotiations were completed, Albert became, Albert became what Miss Powers termed in one of her shows, 'a sex slave'.

  [laughs] 

  Laurence Dvorak : A sex slave. How about that, Alana? Being repeatedly raped in all possible ways if the records are accurate, for 17 days, some of it must've been pretty brutal too because well, Albert was in the hospital after that for about a month. One of his knees was permanently damaged, but that was just physical, I'm sure the real damage was psychological and emotional. Now I know that you didn't want this to become public knowledge but, well, I'm sure that your drinking buddies and your pals and your fellow guards will comiscerate with you and sympathize with your plight now that they know you've been a victim of a repeated brutal rape. Until, you developed a great hatred for the prisoenrs, and for the prison itself I'm sure. Question is, why did you come back to work at the very location of your shame?

  Silsbee : So's he can get some payback.

  Laurence Dvorak : Correct. Yes because we all know of another riot about five years ago, hmm? And when negotiations broke off there and guards were ordered to attack, you were on the wall with a rifle, weren't you? And the guards were ordered to fire, but fire over the heads of the inmates, but 9 men in the yard were hit, 4 died, and 3 of them were leaders in the previous riot. There was an investigation and ballistics tests, but there was only one man reprimanded. Albert. He was given 3 months' suspension, for murder.

  Silsbee : Bastard. Treats us like animals, he just as bad, but he gets away with it.

  Laurence Dvorak : Well I can understand why Albert treats us the way he does, simple anger. I can even understand the foolish act of bringing a loaded pistol into a place where weapons are forbidden, it's simple fear What I cannot understand are the minds that excuse the murders that he committed. Turn it off.

• Alana Powers : For the last two hours we've watched Lawrence Harwin Dvorak terrorize, manipulate and assault, in addition he's provoked two suicides. I think he is a coward and a fake.

  Laurence Dvorak : Careful now.

  [wielding gun] 

  Laurence Dvorak : I still have the power here.

  Alana Powers : Obviously. Now, Mr. Dvorak, do you want to live?

  Laurence Dvorak : Well I don't have the usual preoccupation with living that most people have.

  Alana Powers : Will you sit in this chair? Or is this all a bluff?

  Laurence Dvorak : Um, well I will sit in the chair when the time comes.

  Alana Powers : Meaning?

  Laurence Dvorak : After Reyes and Silsbee.

  Alana Powers : Those two hoodlums will never volunteer for death.

  Reyes : Me and Sils, we been thinking and uh, we're in a good position to negotiate right now. Governor's not gonna want anymore people popping off on TV.

  Laurence Dvorak : You want to live like this?

  Reyes : Well, at least it's living.

  Silsbee : Man can get used to anything.

  Alana Powers : You picked the wrong crew, Mr. Dvorak. Two low rent petty crooks. Reyes here, the poor put upon war veteran, who spent most of his Vietnam tour in the stockade for drug offenses, much like he had spent his earlier life. From the age of 12 he's been in and out of jail, always making excuses for himself: a broken home, lack of a job, no education, Vietnam is no more a legitimate reason for his criminal behavior than any other lie he's told, and the fact is he's a lazy, a-moral petty thief, who got too drunk to realize he'd hit a man too hard and too many times and killed him. And Silsbee, Mr. Silsbee, the poor victim of racial subjugation, one of those brave soldiers in the war against racial discrimination. Is this the man who when the paint on his new car got scratched, he went home, got a shotgun, and slaughtered the offending man, the man's wife, his two children? Blew away an entire family because the paint on his car got scratched, an entire *black* family. Are you the same man who shot and killed a black man, a black woman, and two black children? Now where does that fit into your racial war, Mr. Silsbee, where? You picked two losers, they'll never sit in that chair voluntarily.

  Laurence Dvorak : Oh they will.

  Alana Powers : And now it's time to return to the agreed upon theme of our show: you're the star of the hour, and the question is, Mr. Dvorak, will you sit in this chair? You want a grand exit? Sit in this chair and I'll give you a moment they'll be talking about forever.

  Laurence Dvorak : Who'll throw the switch?

  Alana Powers : I will.

  Laurence Dvorak : You'd do that for me?

  Alana Powers : You said so yourself, we'll both go down in history, I'll be the most famous woman on television.

• Laurence Dvorak : Do it, bitch.

  Alana Powers : No.

  Laurence Dvorak : You promised.

  Alana Powers : I *lied*. Never trust the media.

• Alana Powers : What are you doing with that psychopath?

  Lorraine : I want to die.

  Alana Powers : Why?

  Lorraine : Why not? I'm gonna die anyway, and I'm waiting, the waiting is driving me around the bend. They tell you you're gonna die, the jury tells you, the judge, the warden, but then you wait, is a part of the punishment the waiting? I've been here for three years.

  Alana Powers : But you filed the appeals.

  Lorraine : No I didn't, they filed them for me: the do-gooders, this way, I pick the time and I get it over with, finally, as I just deserve to die, it's justice, and I accept it, so let's do it.

  Alana Powers : I think our audience can understand the grief and pain you were going through when your husband left you...

  Lorraine : No they can't.

  Alana Powers : You helped your husband start a very successful plumbing business, you sacrificed, you loved him I'm sure, but to murder your own two children in front of him...

  Lorraine : He was gonna take them away from me. *My* little babies.

  Alana Powers : But women go through marital crises every day and they don't...

  Lorraine : Just let me die, please.

  Alana Powers : I'm trying to understand how you could kill your own children. I want the audience to try and see how a woman can do this.

  Laurence Dvorak : This is an interesting question here: now was Lorraine Viela sane when she killed her children?

  Lorraine : I wasn't crazy, I knew what I was doing.

  Laurence Dvorak : Well, even the societal taboos against murder, especially infanticide, and knowing the full consequences, how can anyone in their right mind commit murder? I mean you'd have to be crazy, and if you are crazy, according to this system of jurisprudence, you can't be found guilty, that's a paradox.

  Lorraine : I did it. I am not crazy, and I want to die.

• Laurence Dvorak : Well, looks like we have a hit. It'll rate higher than your biggest show. What was your biggest show? Satanic cheerleaders was it? That was a fine piece of journalistic work if I ever saw one.

  [points at the woman anchor] 

  Laurence Dvorak : You used to have her job, didn't you?

  Alana Powers : I worked with her in Baltimore for about a year, good at a desk, not so good in the field.

  Laurence Dvorak : Oh confess, you'd give your eye teeth if you could have her job and be in the real news again.

  Alana Powers : Adding TV critic to your resumé, Mr. Dvorak? I have my own news show.

  Laurence Dvorak : You used to cover the news, now, I mean uh, hookers vs. housewives, satanism in your own backyard, teenage sex surrogates, Alana! You don't represent the news, you just pimp for your audience.

  Alana Powers : Well Larry, how about letting me pimp for you? Let's do our interview, one on one, pimp and provocateur. Joel, turn us on! Come on, Mr. Dvorak.