The true story of Marie Ragghianti is one of those lives they ought to make a movie about, and this time they did. Marie was a young Tennessee woman who broke out of a marriage with a wife-beater and somehow managed to put herself through school while raising her kids, including a chronically ill little boy. Then she got involved on the edges of the state political world, caught the eye of an assistant to the governor, was given a state job, and worked her way up to head of the state parole board.
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If the story ended there, however, it probably wouldn't have made a movie. What makes Marie's story extraordinary is that she discovered corruption in the parole system, and she blew the whistle on the grafters. As a result of her testimony, a Tennessee governor and other officials were sentenced to the very prisons they sought to control.