Symposium

Temple Law Review & the Pennsylvania Innocence Project present:

False Confessions

Intersecting Science, Ethics, and the Law

Friday, November 9, 2012
8:30 am – 4:00 pm
Location: Temple University, Beasley School of Law
Update: New Location
Klein Hall Room, 1719 North Broad Street
Room 2B
Directions

Symposium Materials

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A confession is considered the “golden standard” in a criminal prosecution. Jurors place great weight on evidence that the defendant actually confessed to the crime. Yet the Innocence Project estimates that approximately 25% of their cases resulting in exoneration after examination of DNA evidence involved people who made incriminatory statements about themselves, sometimes outright confessing to the crimes they did not commit.

Such statistics are jarring. After all, it seems illogical for an innocent person facing criminal charges, prison, or even death, to confess to something they did not do. Even more shocking cases involve people confessing to murdering family members, or suspects who actually claim to remember the heinous crimes which they could not possibly have committed.

Why are innocent people confessing? What is it about law enforcement methods, interrogation techniques, and trial procedures that make it possible for our justice system to convict not only the truly guilty but also the truly innocent? And how can we bring about effective systematic change, permitting law enforcement officials to seek “the golden standard” of the true confession, yet root out the false positives?

The Temple Law Review’s 2012 Symposium, False Confessions: Intersecting Science, Ethics, and the Law, seeks to intersect social science, ethics, and the law to find answers to these questions. The Symposium will take a multidisciplinary approach, featuring leading scholars and practitioners who will provide their insight in the interest of raising awareness, explaining new developments in the law and their scholarly research, and suggesting new policies to deal with the life-altering consequences of False Confessions.

Registration costs:

General $150
Temple Law Alumni Association Members $120
Government $120
Public Interest $65
Students $40

Continuing Legal Education (CLE) credits offered: 4 substantive & 1 ethics.

Register Now

Featured Speakers

Keynote Speaker

Saul Kassin
John Jay College of Criminal Justice

Special Lunchtime Presentation

Byron Halsey
DNA Exoneree

Additional Speakers

Marissa Boyers Bluestine Pennsylvania Innocence Project	Joseph P. Buckley III John E. Reid and Associates	Jules Epstein Widener School of Law
Steven A. Drizin Northwestern University	Richard A. Leo University of San Francisco School of Law	Louis M. Natali, Jr. Temple University Beasley School of Law
Peter Neufeld Innocence Project at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law	Richard Ofshe Professor Emeritus of Sociology University of California, Berkeley	Edward Ohlbaum Temple University Beasley School of Law
Allison Redlich School of Criminal Justice University at Albany-SUNY	Jim Trainum Criminal Case Review & Consulting	The Honorable Franklin S. Van Antwerpen U.S. Court of Appeals Third Circuit

Symposium Schedule*

8:00-8:30	Open Registration & Breakfast
8:30-8:45	Welcoming Remarks by Professor Lou Natali
8:45-10:00	Panel 1: Promoting Accuracy in the Use of Confession Evidence: An Argument for Pre-Trial Reliability Hearings to Prevent Wrongful Convictions Speakers: Steven Drizin, Richard Leo, and Peter Neufeld
10:00-10:05	Welcome & Keynote Introduction by Dean Joanne Epps
10:05-11:05	Keynote Speaker: Saul Kassin
11:05-11:15	Break
11:15-12:15	Panel 2: The Use of Deception and Other Ethical Implications in Interrogation Methods Speakers: Lou Natali and Edward Ohlbaum, and Joseph Buckley of Reid & Associates
12:15-12:30	Break and Lunch Pickup
12:30-1:15	Lunch Presentation: Byron Halsey, Innocence Project Exoneree Exonerated July 2007
1:15-1:30	Break
1:30-2:30	Article Presentation: Overcoming False Confessions and Coerced Statements in the Dawning Age of Interrogation Recordation: “…There’s a battle outside and it is ragin’, It’ll soon shake your windows and rattle your walls, for the times they are a-changin’” Speaker: Professor Richard Ofshe
2:30-3:45	Panel 3: Special Issues in False Confessions Speakers: Jules Epstein, Allison Redlich, Jim Trainum, and Marissa Boyers Bluestine
3:45-4:00	Closing Remarks

For more information, please contact Yuliya Benina, Temple Law Review Symposium Editor, at ybenina@temple.edu.

*Subject to change.

Tags: 2012 TLR Symposium

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