The Siegal Lifelong Learning Program’s Ultimate Justice: Four Perspectives on Wrongful Convictions of the Innocent series will continue with “The Myths and Realities of Wrongful Convictions in Popular Culture” Wednesday, Oct. 10, at 7 p.m. at the Landmark Centre Building (25700 Science Park Drive, Beachwood).
Pierce Reed, program director of the Ohio Innocence Project, will provide an overview of depictions of wrongful convictions in pop culture, including Accused by Lisa Scottoline, Central Park Five, Making a Murderer and Law & Order: SVU.
Attendees will learn how these depictions have provided information and misinformation and the dangers of the latter.
Author Jennifer Thompson will discuss her memoir, Picking Cotton, which recounts her experience as a rape survivor in the judicial system and the wrongful conviction of the man she identified as her rapist. Thompson also will discuss her work since then for both rape victims and those falsely accused of rape and other crimes. Attendees will have the opportunity to meet Thompson and ask her questions.
This presentation is made possible through the generosity of:
- Nurenberg, Paris, Heller & McCarthy Co., L.P.A.;
- Brian Howe, attorney for the Ohio Innocence Project;
- Carmen Naso, senior instructor of law at Case Western Reserve University; and
- Russell Tye, chief of the Conviction Integrity Unit.
About the series
Sessions in the Ultimate Justice: Four Perspectives on Wrongful Convictions of the Innocent series will examine and discuss the Ohio Innocence Project’s efforts to exonerate innocent people convicted for crimes they did not commit. Attendees will hear from exonerees on their stories and experiences of conviction, incarceration and ultimate freedom.
Participants will examine the root causes of wrongful convictions through review of Blind Injustice by Mark Godsey, director of the Ohio Innocence Project.
Lawyers who have litigated cases leading to exonerations also will discuss the strategies and technical aspects of their work.
The series began with “The Faces of Wrongful Conviction” Oct. 3 and will continue with the following talks:
- “The Myths and Realities of Wrongful Convictions in Popular Culture” Oct. 10;
- “Anatomy of an Exoneration” Oct. 17; and
- “Causes of Wrongful Conviction: Why Innocent People Get Convicted of Crimes They Did Not Commit” Oct. 24.
The series is free and open to the public. Register for the full series.
This series is made possible through the generosity of Dworken & Bernstein Co., LPA, and Northeast Ohio Board of Advocates for Ohio Innocence Project.