Barry Scheck: The Innocence Project

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Academy of Achievement

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4.6 • 943 Ratings

🗓️ 25 April 2016

⏱️ 40 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The Innocence Project has freed 1000’s of people serving time in prison for crimes they did not commit. Thousands. People who were misidentified by eyewitnesses, or were manipulated into false confessions, or were the victims of unreliable forensic science. Barry Scheck is the co-founder of The Innocence Project, and in this episode he talks about the developments in science that led him and his colleagues to believe that DNA testing could reduce wrongful convictions and transform the criminal justice system. He also discusses some of the very high profile clients he’s represented during his career, including OJ Simpson, Hedda Nussbaum and Abner Louima. And he reveals how his unusual childhood, with a tap dancing father and a speed skating mother, led him on his life’s path as a seeker of justice. (c ) American Academy of Achievement 2016

Transcript

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0:00.0	One morning in 1986, a supermarket manager named Michael Morton left for work.
0:08.0	By the end of the day, he'd been arrested for the murder of his wife Christine, who was found in their bed, beaten to death in front of their
0:16.6	three-year-old son. Michael Morton was sentenced to life and went to prison, but the thing is, he didn't kill his wife. Behind his
0:26.4	conviction is the sickening story of bad forensic science and an unscrupulous prosecutor who hid evidence from the defense,
0:36.4	the judge, and the jury. Meanwhile, the real criminal went on to kill another woman.
0:43.0	In 2011, after 25 years in prison,
0:47.0	Michael Morton was finally exonerated
0:50.0	thanks to DNA evidence
0:52.0	and thanks to the Innocence Project.
0:54.9	I'm Alice Winkler and this is what it takes a podcast about passion, vision and
1:00.9	perseverance from the Academy of Achievement.
1:03.0	On this episode, co-founder of the Innocence Project, Barry Sheck.
1:09.0	Had a maid, this child is gifted and I heard that enough that I started to believe it.
1:18.0	If you have the opportunity, not a perfect opportunity, and you don't take take it you may never have another job.
1:24.3	It all was so clear it was just like the picture started to form itself.
1:29.0	There was no way in which a lie could prevail over the truth, darkness over light, birth over life.
1:37.0	Every day I wake up and decide. Today I'm going to love my life.
1:42.0	Decide. My advice is if they don't break your leg once
1:46.8	when you go in that place stay out of there. And then along
1:49.9	come these differential experiences that you don't look for you don't plan for but boy
1:55.8	you better not miss them.
2:02.1	The Innocence Project has used DNA evidence alone to win the freedom of 337 wrongly convicted men and women, some of them on death row.
	...

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