[Peace] Wrongfully convicted men to speak at UI

[Karen Medina]

Wrongfully convicted men to speak at University of Illinois
from 3 to 6 p.m.
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
at the University of Illinois
College of Law, Max L. Rowe Auditorium, 504 E. Pennsylvania Ave., Champaign

See the full story from the News-Gazette below:
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Wrongfully convicted men to speak at UI
The News-Gazette edition from Mon, 11/29/2010 - 7:00am

Three men released from prison after being wrongfully convicted will
be featured speakers at appearances on the University of Illinois
campuses at Springfield and Champaign.

A release from the UI College of Law said the Downstate Illinois
Innocence Project at UI Springfield has been awarded a Bloodsworth
Postconviction DNA testing grant from the U.S. Department of Justice
that will support a collaboration with the UI College of Law and
Southern Illinois University School of Law.

The grant is intended to defray the costs of post-conviction DNA
testing and help wrongly convicted inmates try to prove their
innocence.

To mark the grant, events will be held from 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Tuesday at the Brookens Auditorium, 1 University Plaza, University of
Illinois Springfield, and from 3 to 6 p.m. Wednesday at the University
of Illinois College of Law, Max L. Rowe Auditorium, 504 E.
Pennsylvania Ave., C. Both events are free and open to the public.

Featured panelists will include:

– Kirk Bloodsworth, the first person to be exonerated from death row
in the nation through post-conviction DNA testing and for whom the
grant program was named. He had been wrongfully convicted – twice – of
the 1984 rape and murder of a 9-year-old Maryland girl.

– Randy Steidl, exonerated after 12 years on Illinois' death row after
having been wrongly convicted of the 1986 murders of a Paris, Ill.,
couple.

– Jerry Hobbs, cleared in the summer of 2010 of the 2005 murders of
his own daughter, 8, and a 9-year-old girl in Lake County, Ill.

– Keith Grant, chief of special defense and project development with
the office of the Lake County Public Defender, and several Lake County
staff, all of whom were associated with Hobbs' exoneration.

The grant will allow students to work on prospective cases that may,
through DNA testing, demonstrate actual innocence of individuals
serving long sentences in Illinois prisons. The students will work
with law school faculty to evaluate evidence and the merit of the
actual innocence claims and to develop motions for testing that will
be brought to the courts.

"This is an extraordinary educational opportunity for our students. As
part of their education, they will be able to work on real cases that
could save the lives of innocent individuals here in Illinois. In the
process, they learn about criminal law, appellate advocacy, and the
type of work that real cases entail," said UI College of Law Professor
Steve Beckett.