imagine that you take a 19-hour very
long drive to Disney World with two kids
in the backseat and 15 minutes into this
19 hour trip the immutable laws of
nature dictates that you get the
question are we there yet
so you answer this question a hundred
more times easily in the negative but
you finally arrive you have a wonderful
wonderful wonderful trip
you drive 19 long hours back home and
when you get there the police are
waiting on you they accuse you of
committing a crime that occurred while
you were away in Florida you tell
anybody and everybody who will listen I
didn’t do it I couldn’t have done it I
was hanging out with Mickey and Minnie
and my kids but no one believes you
ultimately you’re arrested you’re tried
you’re convicted and you’re sentenced
and you spend 25 years in jail until
someone comes along and proves has the
evidence to prove that you actually were
in Florida when this crime was committed
so I’m a harvard law professor and the
last several years I have worked on
winning the release of innocent people
who’ve been wrongfully convicted people
like Jonathan Fleming who spent 24 years
eight months in jail for a murder that
was committed in Brooklyn New York
while he was in Disney World with his
kids how do we know this because when he
was arrested
among his proper
in his back pocket was a receipt
time-stamped receipt that showed that he
was in Disney World that receipt was put
in the police file a copy of it was put
in the prosecutors file and they never
gave it to his public defender in fact
nobody even knew it was there it just
sat there for 20-some odd years my team
looked through the file and we found it
did the rest of the investigation and
figured out someone else committed the
crime mr. Fleming was in Disney World
and he is now released let me give you a
little bit of context so about three
years ago I got a call from the Brooklyn
district attorney he asked whether I’d
be interested in designing a program
called a conviction review unit so I
said yes conviction review unit is
essentially a unit in a prosecutor’s
office where prosecutors look at their
past cases to determine whether or not
they made mistakes over the course of
the first year we found about 13
wrongful convictions people haven’t been
in jail for decades and we released all
of them it was the most in New York
history the program is still going on
and they’re up to 21 releases now 21
people who spent significant time behind
bars so let me tell you just about a
couple other of the men and women that I
interacted with in the course of this
program so one name is Roger Logan mr.
Logan had been in jail 17 years and
wrote me a letter it was a simple letter
it basically said professor Sullivan I’m
innocent I had been framed can you look
at my case at first blush the case
seemed like it was open and shut but my
research that showed that single witness
identification cases are prone to error
doesn’t mean he was innocent just means
we ought to look a little bit closer at
those cases so we did and the facts were
relatively simple the eyewitness said
she heard a shot and she ran to
next building and and turned around and
looked him there was mr. Logan and he
was tried and convicted and in jail for
17 semi years but it was a single
witness case so we took a look at it I
sent some people to the scene and there
was an inconsistency and it’s I don’t
know how let me to put it politely who
same boat couldn’t have run from where
she said she was to the other spot right
so so we knew that wasn’t true right so
still didn’t mean that he didn’t do it
but we knew something was something was
maybe fishy about this witness so look
through the file piece of paper in the
file had a number on it the number
indicated that this witness had a record
we went back through 20 years of non
digitized papers to figure out what this
record was about and it turned out they
turned out that eyewitness was in jail
when she said she saw what she saw man
spent 17 years behind bars
the last one is a case about two two
boys Willy Stuckey David McCallum they
were arrested at 15 and their conviction
was vacated 29 years later now this was
a case once again first blush it looked
open and shut
they had confessed but my research
showed that juvenile confessions without
a parent present are prone to error the
DNA case has proved this several times
so we took a close look looked at the
confession and it turned out there was
something in the confession that those
boys could not have known only people
who knew it were police and prosecutors
we knew what really happened someone
told them to say this we don’t exactly
know who which person did but any rate
the confession was coerced we determined
we then went back and did forensics and
did a fulsome investigation and found
that two other much older different
heights different hairstyle to other
people committed the crime not these two
boys actually went to court that day
when for the what’s called
vacatur hearing right where the
conviction is thrown out I went to court
I wanted to see mr. McCallum walk out of
there so what the court and the judge
says something that judges say all the
time but this took on a really special
meaning he looked up after the arguments
and said mr. McCallum said five
beautiful words you are free to go
can you imagine after just about 30
years you are free to go and he walked
out of that courtroom unfortunately its
co-defendant mr. Stuckey didn’t get the
benefit of that you see mr. Stuckey died
in prison at 34 years old and his mother
sat at counsel table in his place I’ll
never forget this the rest of my life
she just rocked at the table saying I
knew my baby didn’t do this I knew my
baby didn’t do this and her baby didn’t
do this to other guys did it if there’s
anything that we’ve learned anything
that I’ve learned with this conviction
integrity work is that justice doesn’t
justice is not a thing that just you
know descends from above and makes
everything right if it did mr. Stuckey
wouldn’t have died in prison justice is
something that people of good will make
happen justice is a decision justice is
a decision we make justice happen you
know that the scary thing is in each of
these three cases I described it would
have only taken just an extra minute an
extra minute for someone to look through
the file and find this receipt just just
one more to look through the file find
the receipt give it to the public
defender
it would have taken someone just a
minute to look at the video confession
to say that cannot be just a minute
and perhaps mr. Stuckey would be alive
today it reminds me of one of my
favorite poems and it’s a point that
Benjamin Elijah Mays would always recite
and he called it God’s minute and it
goes something like this I have only
just a minute only 60 seconds in it
forced upon me can’t refuse it didn’t
seek it didn’t choose it but it’s up to
me to use it I must suffer if I lose it
give a count if I abuse it just a tiny
little minute but eternity is in it if I
were to charge each and every one of us
I would want to say something like every
day every day take just one extra minute
and do some justice you don’t have to I
mean some people spend their careers in
their lives like public defenders doing
justice every day but in your
professional lives whatever you do take
time out to just do some justice make a
colleague feel better if you hear
something that’s sexist don’t laugh
speak up if someone is down lift them up
one extra minute each day and it be a
great great place now I want to show you
something now above me is a picture of
David McCallum this is the day he was
released from prison after 30 years he
got to hug and nice he had never been
able to touch before and I asked him
then I said what’s the first thing you
want to do and he said I just want to
walk on a sidewalk without anybody
telling me where to go wasn’t bitter I
just wanted to walk on a sidewalk I
spoke to mr. McCallum about two weeks
ago I went to New York and it was on the
two-year anniversary of his release and
we talked we laughed we hugged we cried
and he’s doing quite well and one of the
things he said when we met with him is
that he now has dedicated his life and
his career to ensuring that nobody else
is locked up unjustly justice my friends
is a decision thank you very much [Applause]
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