Innocence Project Co-Founder Scheck to Speak at School of Law on Sept. 5
August 29, 2008
Contact: University Relations
Phone: 410.837.5739
Innocence Project co-founder Barry Scheck will speak at the University of Baltimore School of Law on Friday, Sept. 5 at noon. Nancy Forster, public defender for the State of Maryland and an alumna of the School of Law, will introduce Scheck. After the lecture, the Maryland Office of the Public Defender and the School of Law will announce their new collaborative Innocence Project. The event, to be held in the school's Moot Court Room, 1415 Maryland Ave., is free and open to the public.
In 1992, Scheck co-founded the Innocence Project with Peter J. Neufeld. The organization works to overturn wrongful convictions on the basis of DNA testing. Since its inception, the project and its affiliates have overturned 220 convictions, including those of 17 who spent time on death row after being wrongfully convicted. (The first person exonerated from death row by post-conviction DNA testing, Kirk Bloodsworth, was wrongfully convicted in Maryland in 1985 and spent more than eight years in prison before being freed and pardoned.) Scheck will speak about the systemic problems in the criminal justice system that lead to wrongful convictions, and the nature of the reforms that can reduce the risk of convicting the innocent.
Scheck graduated from Yale University before receiving his J.D. and M.C.P. from the University of California at Berkeley. He is an internationally renowned criminal defense attorney who has handled many high profile cases including that of British nanny Louise Woodward and Duke University lacrosse player Reade Seligmann. Currently, he is a professor at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University.
Scheck's visit will also mark the official start of a new Innocence Project in Maryland. Forster and Stephen Harris, interim director of the School of Law's Stephen L. Snyder Center for Litigation Skills, will announce a new partnership between the two organizations. Under the direction of Harris, a former public defender for the state of Maryland who helped to institute the state's first Innocence Project, and Michele Nethercott, current head of the Office of the Public Defender's Innocence Project, the School of Law's student Litigation Fellows will handle initial investigative work and interview potential Innocence Project clients.
The assistance of the student Fellows will allow the Office of the Public Defender to free up two senior staff attorneys to return to trial work, while giving the students invaluable practical experience. In addition, six of the student Fellows will be assigned to work in pairs on three cases already accepted by the Innocence Project, assuring them case experience.
According to Harris, "The students are so enthusiastic about the chance to participate in the Innocence Project. It will give them the knowledge to really judge if a case has merit, which is essential in defense work and litigation."
For more information about Sheck's presentation or the School of Law's participation in the Innocence Project, visit the School of Law's Web site, http://law.ubalt.edu, or call 410.837.6798.
The University of Baltimore is a member of the University System of Maryland and comprises the School of Law, the Yale Gordon College of Liberal Arts and the Merrick School of Business.