Events This Week in New York and Virginia

Today in Virginia, Innocence Project Co-Directors Peter Neufeld and Barry Scheck will be awarded the prestigious

Thomas Jefferson Medal

from the University of Virginia for their decades of service to public interest law and the impact of their work on the criminal justice system. They will discuss “innocence, science and due process” at the law school in Charlottesville, Virginia, at 4:15 p.m. ET. The event is free and open to the public.

Get directions here

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And at noon this Thursday, April 16, Innocence Project Staff Attorney Vanessa Potkin and exoneree Alan Newton will speak at New York University in New York City. They will discuss Newton’s case, proposed reforms to prevent wrongful convictions and Newton’s new organization to support the exonerated after release.

Alan Newton was imprisoned for 21 years in New York. His repeated requests over many years for DNA testing on biological evidence from his case were denied because the evidence was not located and believed to have been destroyed. When Newton became a client of the Innocence Project, the involvement and the persistence of the chief prosecutor of sex crimes in the Bronx, Elisa Koenderman, resulted in a successful search for the rape kit. DNA testing in 2006 showed that Alan Newton was not the rapist. He was released and exonerated of the rape, assault and robbery charges against him.

Since his release, Alan completed his bachelor’s degree and is now planning to attend law school. He is a co-founder of A.F.T.E.R. , Advocates for Freedom, Transformation, and Exoneree Rights, Inc., which provides services and a support network for exonerees.

Join them this Thursday, April 16th, from 12-2 p.m. in Kimmel 905 at New York University. To RSVP for the event, please email Bindi Patel at

bindi.patel@nyu.edu

today.