No Tomorrow (DVD)

In 2004, filmmakers Roger Weisberg and Vanessa Roth produced and directed the documentary Aging Out, which focused on a handful of teenagers who had spent years in the foster care system without being adopted and faced the prospect of becoming legal adults without a family. One of the people profiled in the film was Risa Bejarano, who had been in the California foster care system since she was nine. Less than a year after Aging Out was completed, Bejarano was shot and killed by Juan Jose Chavez, who took her life so she could not testify in an upcoming murder trial. After Chavez was found guilty of Bejarano's murder, the prosecution screened Aging Out during the penalty phase of the trial in hopes the jury would be more inclined to sentence Chavez to death. Filmmakers Weisberg and Roth found their work brought into an argument about the death penalty in California, and in No Tomorrow the same filmmakers examine Bejarano's murder, Chavez's blighted personal history, the way in which the state of California used Aging Out in the courtroom, and the reactions of the defense, the prosecution and the jury to the penalty phase and its outcome. No Tomorrow was an official selection at the 2010 Cinequest Film Festival.