Actual Innocence & Death Penalty

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Barry Scheck has gone on the road to promote The Innocence Project nationally.

At the "National Conference on Wrongful Conviction and the Death Penalty" held in November at Northwestern Law School, Professor Scheck invoked Judge Learned Hand, who in 1923 wrote, "Our procedure has always been haunted by the ghost of the innocent man convicted. It is an unreal dream." He called upon colleagues from law schools around the country to establish an "Innocence Network."

According to Scheck, the conference, which he helped to organize, is the first step in building a network of faculty members who will take on wrongful conviction cases and/or teach courses that explore the causes and remedies for this vexing problem.

"It is our experience that law schools are the last, best hope for those who have viable claims of wrongful conviction. . . These cases are often complex, and they require idealism, energy, and creative lawyering-qualities found in abundance among faculty, students, and administrations at law schools," wrote Scheck in a letter of invitation to law professors throughout the country.

"Moreover," he continued, "when even one wrongful conviction is corrected on the grounds of actual innocence, the impact of that case in the jurisdiction where it occurred, and the lessons it teaches about all aspects of the system, are usually profound for all involved."

According to Scheck, "we have learned through our work that so much more could be accomplished if law schools throughout the country made a concerted and organized effort to focus on the problem of actual innocence from both a scholarly and hands-on perspective."

Source: http://www.cardozo.net/life/fall1998/faculty.briefs/