Looking at 'Human Factors' for Wrongful Conviction Day
"I had a strong alibi and scientific evidence indicating I was not the perpetrator," said Georgia Innocence Project Board Member Calvin C. Johnson Jr. "But somehow four people claim they saw me. Coupled with an all-white jury judging a black man accused of assaulting two white women, I did not stand a chance." DNA evidence exonerated him after he spent 16 years in prison.
October 01, 2019 at 12:40 PM
3 minute read
The Georgia Innocence Project and the Innocence Network will mark Wrongful Conviction Day Wednesday with talks and presentations at schools around the state.
"By understanding the role that human factors such as implicit bias, tunnel vision, and memory malleability play in the criminal legal system, we can greatly reduce their negative impact and help prevent wrongful convictions," Georgia Innocence Project Executive Director Clare Gilbert said in a news release Tuesday.
The Innocence Network created Wrongful Conviction Day in 2014 as an annual international observance dedicated to ending wrongful convictions and highlighting the plight of those convicted of crimes they did not commit. The goal is to raise awareness about the causes and consequences of wrongful conviction, and to recognize the tremendous personal, social and emotional costs of wrongful conviction for innocent people and their families.
This year, the Innocence Network has collaborated with the International Association of Chiefs of Police to bring awareness to how the human factors affect the criminal justice system, and how to mitigate their negative impact.
Advocates and exonerees will be speaking to students in more than a dozen different Atlanta- and Macon-area schools.
One of those is Georgia Innocence Project Board Member Calvin C. Johnson Jr. He spent 16 years in prison for a crime he did not commit before DNA testing proved his innocence.
"I had a strong alibi and scientific evidence indicating I was not the perpetrator," Johnson said in the news release. "But somehow four people claim they saw me. Coupled with an all-white jury judging a black man accused of assaulting two white women, I did not stand a chance."
Marquis at the Rialto Theater and 7 Stages Theater will mark the day with a video.
DeKalb County Public Libraries will host readings of the children's storybook "The Trial of Cardigan Jones."
"The criminal legal system is a human system and, as such, produces errors based in large part on psychological factors—from cognitive bias to tunnel vision—that enable wrongful convictions," the group said in announcing the news. "If the legal system fails to achieve justice not because it is 'bad,' but because it is made up of fallible humans, then education focused on cognitive biases, and their impact on justice is critically important."
The group is encouraging those who attend events Wednesday to take pictures and post them to social media using the hashtag #WrongfulConvictionDay and tag @gainnocence. The events will conclude at 7 p.m. with a trivia contest at the Georgia Beer Garden.
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