President’s Lecture Series

Barry Scheck and other defenders of the wrongly convicted to speak

Nationally known attorneys Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld and journalist Jim Dwyer will talk about miscarriages of justice and their new book, Actual Innocence: Five Days to Execution and Other Dispatches from the Wrongly Convicted, on March 23, part of the President’s Lecture Series.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Nationally known lawyers Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld and Pulitzer-winning journalist Jim Dwyer will speak about efforts to free wrongly convicted people on March 23 at 7 p.m. in the Salomon Center for Teaching on The College Green. Their presentation, part of Brown’s continuing President’s Lecture Series, is open to the public without charge.

The three have written the new book, Actual Innocence: Five Days to Execution and Other Dispatches from the Wrongly Convicted, which is the title of their presentation at Brown.

Scheck and Neufeld established the Innocence Project in 1992, which seeks the release of wrongly convicted people through DNA testing. Since then, the lawyers have helped free 37 wrongly convicted people. Scheck serves on the National Institute of Justice’s Commission on the Future of DNA Evidence and, along with Neufeld, is a member of the New York State Commission on Forensic Science. They frequently provide pro bono advice to lawyers across the country involved in death penalty cases.

Dwyer joined the New York Daily News in 1995, the year he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Best Commentary. He broke the news about the use of sweatshop workers in Manhattan for the Kathie Lee Gifford clothing line and was the first American journalist to report on the secret amateur diplomacy behind the Irish peace process. His reporting on racial profiling in a New Jersey Turnpike shooting led to an investigation and federal monitoring of state police practices. He and former colleagues at New York Newsday shared in the Pulitzer Prize for metropolitan reporting in 1992.

Their appearance is part of the President’s Lecture Series founded in 1992 by former Brown President Vartan Gregorian to bring eminent American and international historians, political leaders, writers and artists to Rhode Island. Past lecturers have included Maya Angelou, Eli Wiesel, Claire Bloom, Tony Kushner and Frank Rich.