New York Exoneree Earns Master’s Degree
05.29.13
Nearly seven years after being freed from prison for a crime he did not commit, a New York exoneree received his master’s degree in criminal justice from John Jay College of Criminal Justice on Tuesday, reported WNBC-New York.
Innocence Project client Jeffrey Deskovic was 16-years-old when he was arrested for the murder of a 15-year-old classmate. After a lengthy interrogation, he falsely confessed and spent more than 15 years behind bars before DNA testing proved his innocence.
“I’ve come so far, between there and now, and the emotions kind of got the better of me,” he said.
In the years since his release, Deskovic went back to school and recently founded the Jeffrey Deskovic Foundation for Justice to help other innocent people get out of prison.
“I need to feel like I’m making some sort of a difference so I can make some sense out of what happened to me,” he said.
At Tuesday’s ceremony, honorary degrees were awarded to Innocence Project Co-directors Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld who assisted on Deskovic’s case.
Watch more
from WNBC-New York.
Read more
about Deskovic’s case.
Leave a Reply
Thank you for visiting us. You can learn more about how we consider cases here. Please avoid sharing any personal information in the comments below and join us in making this a hate-speech free and safe space for everyone.