Guilty until proven innocent

• Event: 2012 IRE Conference
• Speakers: TBA
• Date/Time: Friday, June 15 at 3:25 p.m.
• Location: Salon C-D
• Audio file: Only members can listen to conference audio

An exploration of the challenges and rewards of covering wrongful conviction cases and issues. This panel discussion will cover the important role journalists can and should play in investigating likely wrongful convictions, (academic experts say there are thousands of innocent people in U.S. prisons), the many obstacles reporters face and strategies for overcoming them, the challenges of cases with and without DNA evidence and advice about handling common ethical issues. The panel also will explore the major issues that contribute to wrongful convictions: unreliability of eyewitness identification, prosecutorial misconduct, police misconduct, snitch evidence, false confessions, and
frequently used forensic evidence that a National Academy of Sciences Foundation panel of experts says has not been scientifically proven (even though it is presented and accepted in court as if it has been).

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