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While each panelist came to the 90-minute discussion from a different per- spective, they all passionately expressed the importance of this work against injustice, which to a large extent over time has been levelled against low income, young men and women of color; and they offered ways this injus- tice can be addressed and rectified. Our panel discussed their remarkable experiences and the various advocacy, ethical, and legislative issues one fac- es in freeing the innocent. The panel consisted of ACTL Fellows who have successfully represented wrongly imprisoned individuals; a co-founder of an innocence organization that has exonerated more than forty individu- als; a ground-breaking ACTL Fellow-prosecutor; an individual judicially declared innocent in 2023, after serving twenty-eight years in prison for a
1994 murder he never committed; and a state court judge who has presided over numerous motions brought by those arguing their innocence.
Our panelists, skillfully moderated by ACTL Distinguished Pro Bono Fellow Sam Silver from Philadelphia, a locally and nationally acclaimed leader in the innocence arena, were: 1) Honorable Harry Elias, recently re- tired from the California Superior Court after thirty years on the bench; 2) ACTL Distinguished Pro Bono Fellow Charlie Weiss from St. Louis, whose remarkable work for several wrongly incarcerated individuals has been na- tionally recognized multiple times; 3) Lamar Johnson, wrongly convicted and imprisoned in Missouri from 1995 until Valentine’s Day, February 14, 2023; 4) ACTL Fellow Melissa Nelson from Jacksonville, the first Florida State Attorney to create a Conviction Integrity Unit (CIU) in her Fourth Judicial Circuit prosecutor’s office following her election in 2017; 5) Justin Brooks, the co-founder of the California Innocence Project in 1999 and author of the book entitled You Might Go To Prison, Even Though You’re Innocent; and 6) ACTL Fellow Michael Feldberg from New York City, who serves on the Lawyers Committee of the Innocence Project.
Through the Emil Gumpert Award and other ACTL Foundation grants, the College has recognized and fi- nancially supported the important work done by access to justice enti- ties whose mission is to correct the injustice that any innocent person be incarcerated for a crime they did not commit. Our Access to Justice and Pro Bono Fellows Committees have been working to develop, enhance, and strengthen to the fullest extent possible our College’s important re- lationship with Innocence Network organizations (“innocence organiza- tions”) across North America. https:// innocencenetwork.org/directory. The CLE program was an important step in advancing that relationship.
The program educated the audience about the significance of work for the innocent and inspired a number of Fellows to become involved in vari- ous ways in assisting their local inno- cence organization.
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