Advocates for exonerees, those citizens wrongfully imprisoned for crimes they did not commit, will host a community forum to raise awareness of the issue at Millsaps College on Monday, April 7th.
Entitled "Innocent People: Understanding Wrongful Imprisonment," the event is free and open to the public. It will begin at 7 p.m., at the Campbell Student Center's Leggett Center on Millsaps' campus.
Speaking at the forum will be Tucker Carrington, director of the new Mississippi Innocence Project in Oxford; Emily Maw, director of the New Orleans Innocence Project; Nsombi Lambright, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Mississippi; and Cedric Willis, a local exoneree released from prison in 2006 after being falsely imprisoned in the Mississippi State Penitentiary for 12 years. The forum will also include a visual media presentation and a Q&A session with the speakers.
"There's not an issue today more important to Jackson and to the state,"
Chris Spear, the event's organizer, commented. "Scientific evidence proved these Mississippians to be innocent of the crimes for which they were convicted and imprisoned for years. It's an incredible injustice." Spear referred to the February release of Kennedy Brewer, a man released in Noxubee County after his 1995 conviction was dismissed. Spear also referred to Arthur Johnson, a Sunflower County man who served 15 years in prison before DNA evidence proved his innocence.
The forum will focus on the two most critical reforms recommended by the national Innocence Project organization: eyewitness reform and post-exoneration compensation. Statistics from the Project's website claim a 77% error rate in positive eyewitness identification of later-exonerated prisoners. The numbers also point out Mississippi's status as one of only eight states in the U.S. to lack any kind of legislation to provide occupational, health, legal, or financial help for exonerees to rejoin society after their wrongful convictions are overturned.
Sponsors of "Innocent People" include the Mississippi Innocence Project, the ACLU of Mississippi, the Mississippi Association for Justice, the Millsaps College Minister for Missions, and the Jackson Free Press. Spear, a Millsaps College graduate, began developing the forum concept after reading about the post-exoneration life of a man in his home state of Louisiana.
"Education and engagement in these issues is as every bit as important as our advances in the courtroom," Carrington said. "Only when people understand the situation can we begin changing it for the better."
