On this day twenty-one years ago, the Harvard Law School Forum hosted a panel discussion, “Innocent on Death Row: The Causes of and Remedies for Unjust Convictions.”
HLS Professor Charles Nesson moderated the panel, which featured the late journalist Jim Dwyer; lawyers Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld, founders of the Innocence Project and authors of the book “Actual Innocence;” Richard Lewontin (Professor of Biology, Harvard); Bill Kovach (Curator, Nieman Foundation for Journalism, Harvard); and Louis Michael Seidman (Professor, Georgetown University).
The HLS Forum has made the panel recording available through their YouTube channel, along with other events over the years. Check out the “Innocent on Death Row” recording below:
You can also read about the event in the Harvard Law Record, the student newspaper.
Jerry Rappaport, HLS 1949, founded the HLS Forum in 1946 to invite speakers to address important issues facing the world after World War II. For 75 years this non-partisan student organization has been dedicated to fostering open discussion on a broad range of cultural, legal, social, and political issues. The HLS Library’s Historical & Special Collections also has a collection of the Forum’s records from 1946-2000.