Sunday, January 13, 2008
Southwestern University to Host a Wrongful Conviction Symposium
Southwestern University's Law Review is hosing a Wrongful Conviction Symposium on Feb. 8, 2008
Wrongful conviction of the innocent not only destroys the lives
of those found guilty and their families, it allows the criminals who
actually perpetrated the crimes to go unpunished and free to commit
additional offenses. Southwestern will present Wrongful Convictions:
Causes and Cures on Friday, February 8, 2008, a symposium dedicated to
exploring the causes of wrongful conviction, the media's role in these
cases and the ways to reduce their occurrence.
Recent developments in DNA testing have confirmed the
long-standing fear that individuals can be convicted of crimes they did
not commit. There have been more than 200 DNA exonerations in the
United States that have typically involved serious violent felonies,
some of which were capital crimes. A number of exonerations have also
occurred in cases not involving scientific evidence.
"It is no longer surprising to see media accounts of
individuals who have been wrongfully convicted and exonerated after
serving lengthy sentences, sometimes on death row," said Southwestern
Professor Myrna Raeder, a nationally recognized expert on evidence and
procedure who is a co-organizer of the event. "This symposium will
focus on many of the recognized causes of wrongful convictions, and the
ways that jurisdictions can become more effective in ensuring the
integrity of the criminal justice system."
The symposium will feature legal scholars, law enforcement
officials, prosecutors, defense attorneys, journalists, and other
experts who will discuss the causes of wrongful convictions, such as
mistaken eyewitness testimony, faulty forensic evidence, unreliable
informants and false confessions, among other issues. Approaches to
reducing the occurrence of wrongful convictions and providing
compensation, such as those suggested by recently adopted American Bar
Association (ABA) policies, will be also be discussed, as well as the
media's role in these matters. The program is being co-sponsored by the
ABA Criminal Justice Section, the Center on Wrongful Convictions at
Northwestern University School of Law, and the National Legal Aid and
Defender Association.
In addition to featured luncheon speaker Peter Neufeld,
co-director of the Innocence Project, panelists will include: Dino
Amoroso, formerly Kings County District Attorney's Office; Professor
Rory Little, University of California, Hastings College of the Law;
Professor Laurie Levenson, William M. Rains Fellow and Director of the
Center for Ethical Advocacy, Loyola Law School; Barry Fisher, Director,
Los Angeles County Sheriff's Crime Laboratory; Professor Paul
Giannelli, Case Western Reserve University School of Law; Professor
Jennifer Mnookin, University of California, Los Angeles School of Law;
Professor William Thompson, Chair, Department of Criminology, Law &
Society, School of Social Ecology, University of California, Irvine;
Professor Margaret Berger, Brooklyn Law School; Hon. Arthur L. Burnett,
Sr., Executive Director, National African-American Drug Policy
Coalition; Professor Andrew Taslitz, Howard University School of Law;
Gigi Gordon, Directing Attorney, Post Conviction Assistance Center;
Professor Gerald Uelmen, Director, Edwin A. Heafey Jr. Center for Trial
and Appellate Advocacy, Santa Clara University School of Law and
Reporter, California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice;
Henry Weinstein, Legal Affairs Reporter for the Los Angeles Times; and
Professor Kenneth Williams, Southwestern Law School. Southwestern
professors Isabelle Gunning, Jonathan Miller and Karen Smith will serve
as moderators.
Articles written in coordination with the Wrongful Convictions
symposium will be published in the Southwestern University Law Review,
a student-edited quarterly journal that publishes scholarly articles
and commentary on the law contributed by prominent jurists,
practitioners, law professors, and student members of the Law Review
staff. In addition to publishing the writings of the participants, the
Law Review has received permission to reprint the ABA Criminal Justice
Section's report "Achieving Justice: Freeing the Innocent, Convicting
the Guilty." For further information, contact the Law Review Office.
The symposium will take place from 8:45 a.m. (check in begins
at 8 a.m.) to 5:30 p.m. in the historic Bullocks Wilshire Building on
Southwestern's campus, 3050 Wilshire Boulevard, in Los Angeles.
[Mark Godsey]
http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/crimprof_blog/2008/01/southwester-uni.html
VANCOUVER — In one of the largest wrongful conviction settlements awarded in Canada, the federal government has quietly paid $7 million to a British Columbia man who spent more than seven years defending his innocence for a crime he didn't commit.
Posted by: Briana Lyle | Aug 10, 2008 8:40:18 PM