Conference on innocence

Kate Raven, an intern with the ACLU of Northern California, dropped this off in my email inbox the other day:

On my first day as a Criminal Justice Policy Intern for the ACLU, I spoke with a dozen men and women who had been wrongfully imprisoned in this state. Many were on death row until their convictions were overturned. Although I had a general
idea of the facts of each case, nothing could have prepared me for the humanity and strength I heard in the voices at the other end of the line. Through their stories I began to feel the magnitude of the challenge facing us today, as we come to grips with a justice system that has mistakenly landed over 200 people in California in jail for murder, rape, and other serious felonies. That number, by the way, is just since 1990.

You can hear these remarkable men and women speak about their unjust imprisonment and their struggle for freedom at a conference hosted by UCLA, April 7-9th. This conference will facilitate the largest gathering of California’s exonereesever. In addition, new research discussing the causes and prevalence of wrongful conviction in California and demonstrating systemic racial and geographic disparities in the application of the death penalty in this state will be presented. Speakers include Judge Ken Starr, State Senator Gloria Romero, Barry Scheck (co-director of NY’s Innocence Project), and many others. You will be changed by what you hear.

Please visit http://www.stopwrongfulconvictions.org/ for more information or to register.