Texas Tech Law Review Hosts "Convicting the Innocent" Symposium
April 1, 2008
Daylong event will address questions in legal, justice systems.
Texas Tech University’s Texas Tech Law Review will host its annual Criminal Law
Symposium, featuring the topic Convicting the Innocent.
The event is scheduled from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Friday (April 4) in the court room of the Texas Tech Law School at 19th Street and Hartford Avenue.
The symposium explores three major questions in panels and speaker formats, including: Why we convict as many innocent people as we do, is there a way that we could convict fewer innocent people without acquitting too many guilty people, and given that we know that we sometimes convict innocent people, what, if anything, that says about the death penalty.
"For many years the concept of an innocent person being convicted was thought to be a theoretical possibility that rarely, if ever, happened," said Arnold Loewy, criminal law professor at Texas Tech and convener of the symposium. "In recent years, we have seen dramatic evidence – frequently DNA – that the number of innocent people we actually convict is far greater than we ever imagined."
Loewy says it makes many people wonder if that is only the tip of the iceberg and whether there are even more undiscovered innocents who are in prison, or worse, who have been executed.
For registration information, a complete agenda, list of speakers and specific locations, visit www.texastechlawreview.org/symposium or contact Chasity Thomas at (512) 576-8930.
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CONTACT: Chasity Thomas, symposium editor, Texas Tech University School of Law, (512) 576-8930 or chasity.west@ttu.edu.
The event is scheduled from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Friday (April 4) in the court room of the Texas Tech Law School at 19th Street and Hartford Avenue.
The symposium explores three major questions in panels and speaker formats, including: Why we convict as many innocent people as we do, is there a way that we could convict fewer innocent people without acquitting too many guilty people, and given that we know that we sometimes convict innocent people, what, if anything, that says about the death penalty.
"For many years the concept of an innocent person being convicted was thought to be a theoretical possibility that rarely, if ever, happened," said Arnold Loewy, criminal law professor at Texas Tech and convener of the symposium. "In recent years, we have seen dramatic evidence – frequently DNA – that the number of innocent people we actually convict is far greater than we ever imagined."
Loewy says it makes many people wonder if that is only the tip of the iceberg and whether there are even more undiscovered innocents who are in prison, or worse, who have been executed.
For registration information, a complete agenda, list of speakers and specific locations, visit www.texastechlawreview.org/symposium or contact Chasity Thomas at (512) 576-8930.
-30-
CONTACT: Chasity Thomas, symposium editor, Texas Tech University School of Law, (512) 576-8930 or chasity.west@ttu.edu.