Kelly Duda is an American filmmaker and activist from Arkansas. Duda spent seven years making Factor 8: The Arkansas Prison Blood Scandal.
Variety magazine described Duda as "a pit bull with a bureaucratic bone" who "follows subjects fearlessly and ventures into hostile environs (and) comes away, most of the time, with the information he wants to get." Variety described Factor 8 as "hard-headed journalism" stating, "one of the things that hits the viewer in 'Factor 8' is that Ken Starr spent more than $40 million trying to pin something on then-President Bill Clinton, and missed what Duda found via sheer leg work."[1] Duda experienced a significant amount of blow back in his native state of Arkansas as a result of his investigation, including claims of death threats, his tires being slashed, break-ins, files being stolen, and other things.[2]
The American Film Institute remarked, "Kelly Duda's dedication to the truth is an inspiration—this expose wears his heart on its sleeve, refusing to let the victims die in vain."
Duda was also part of the team for Fuji Television that produced The Hepatitis C Epidemic: A 15-Year Government Cover-up. The program won a George Foster Peabody Award in 2003 and was reportedly watched by more than 12 million viewers in Japan.[3]
Evidence and documents unearthed by Duda were used to help 5,500 "forgotten" Canadian victims of tainted blood receive a $1 billion compensation package from the Canadian federal government in 2006.[4]
On July 11, 2007, Duda testified (as the only American) at the Lord Archer Inquiry on Contaminated Blood in the Parliament of the United Kingdom overseen by Peter Archer, Baron Archer of Sandwell.[5] The British inquiry aimed to uncover the British government's part in a scandal that led to thousands of infections and deaths. Duda gave evidence as to the United States' role in the tragedy in what Lord Robert Winston has dubbed as "the worst treatment disaster in the history of the National Health Service".[6] Describing him as "a bit of a maverick", the New Statesman remarked about Duda that, "his flat American accent stood out at the inquiry but not as much as his character," adding, "By the time he was done testifying to Lord Archer of Sandwell’s Inquiry, those in the audience who weren't familiar with his work had been swayed that the scandal was even worse than they realised - an idea that seemed impossible only one hour earlier."[7]
In 2009, the two-year old inquiry's conclusion condemned the UK government for its lack of self sufficiency, citing the use of high-risk prisoners' blood from the U.S. as one of the factors.[8]
Further evidence of Duda's helped lead to four successful class-action lawsuits for tainted blood victims in Japan, which led to government compensation for 1,000 victims, and an apology from Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, who on January 11, 2008, said: "We must frankly admit the state's responsibility for causing huge harm to the victims and for failing to prevent the harm from spreading. I express my apologies from my heart."[9]
In addition, Duda was the "go-to" contact in Arkansas for Robert Greenwald's controversial documentary Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price, and has contributed to The ACLU Freedom Files.
On September 20, 2007, Kelly Duda traveled to Jena, Louisiana with students from the University of Central Arkansas to participate in the Jena 6 march for justice, along with Martin Luther King III and thousands of others.
Kelly Duda was co-founder, along with Lanette Grate, of the short-lived West Memphis Three Injustice Project, a 501(c)(3) organization. Duda was also the president of the board. The board members included Grate, Mara Leveritt, Amanda Lamb, and Dennis Devine. Mara Leveritt has reported extensively about the WM3 for the Arkansas Times as well as authored a book on the subject called Devil's Knot: The True Story of the West Memphis Three. The mission of the West Memphis Three Injustice Project was to help exonerate Arkansas prisoners Jason Baldwin, Jessie Misskelley and Damien Echols, otherwise known as West Memphis Three. A long-time supporter of the cause to free the West Memphis 3,[10] Duda joined the WM3 advocacy group Arkansas Take Action in 2007. However, he soon became concerned about financial opacity and irregularities associated with the Damien Echols Trust Account, which seemed to be getting all the funds raised by Echol's wife, Lorri Davis and WM3.org. These concerns were shared by Dan Stidham, Jessie Misskelley's original attorney, now a judge, and confirmed by Jason Baldwin's attorney, John T. Philipsborn. The WM3IP demanded transparency and accountability in WM3.org's fundraising process, so that all three wrongly convicted men could benefit from financial donations, not just one. In fact, according to WM3IP's website at the time, very little of the donated funds collected by Lorri Davis via the WM3.org website had made its way to the defense teams for Misskelley and Baldwin, the "forgotten" other two members of the WM3. Stidham called this lack of fairness in the defense fund distribution "an injustice inside an injustice." Despite great resistance from WM3.org and Lorri Davis, which included public attacks by Davis' publicist, Alice Leeds, and hate blogs and websites set-up to personally attack each of WM3IP board members reputations, concessions were eventually made with guarantees by Davis & Echol's attorney, Dennis Riordan. As a direct result of the WM3IP's efforts and demands, reforms took place and the organization disbanded in 2008.[11]
Kelly Duda was one of the judges at the 2008 & 2009 Little Rock Film Festival.