Conference to feature Innocence Project work

A conference focusing on how eyewitness error may put innocent people on death row will feature the Wisconsin Innocence Project of the UW Law School.

“What If You’re Not Guilty? Eyewitness Error in the Criminal Justice System,” co-sponsored by the Law School and three other innocence projects, will be held Wednesday, May 2, 1-5 p.m. at Andrews University in Berrien Springs, Mich.

Among the speakers will be Keith Findley, co-director of the Wisconsin Innocence Project and attorney for Maurice Carter, an African-American man who has served 26 years on a conviction which rested entirely on eyewitness testimony that has now been called into question.

Findley expects to file a post-conviction motion seeking to reverse Carter’s conviction. Carter, whose case will be the focus of the conference, was convicted by an all-white jury and sentenced to life in prison for shooting and wounding a white police officer from Benton Harbor, Mich., in 1973. Compelling evidence of innocence has been assembled on his behalf, and he is seeking a new trial.

A study indicates that since capital punishment was restored in the United States in the 1970s, 90 death-row prisoners have been exonerated after eyewitness errors came to light.

Presenters in addition to Findley will include Kirk Bloodsworth, who was sentenced to death in Maryland because five eyewitnesses mistakenly identified him; Jennifer Thompson, whose mistaken identification caused an innocent man to spend 11 years in prison in North Carolina; and Gary Wells, an Iowa State University psychology professor regarded as the nation’s leading authority on eyewitness fallibility.

Sponsors of the conference in addition to the projects at Wisconsin and Northwestern are the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Andrews University and the Thomas M. Cooley Law School in Lansing, Mich.