The Best of the 2017 Innocence Project Gala
05.17.17 By Innocence Staff
Dion Harrell, Anthony Wright, and Darryl Howard attended their first gala. Photo by MatteDesign.
The 25th anniversary Innocence Project gala on May 16 in New York City was a night to remember. Nearly 1,000 people attended the event where Innocence Project Co-Founders and Co-Directors Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld were honored and surprised with congratulatory videos from a range of friends, experts and celebrities who support the organization.
“What is it in you that sees something unfair happening to someone else and makes you want to change it,” Academy Award-winning actress Meryl Streep asked in her opening for the evening’s program. “It’s empathy!”
Related: Meet 350 DNA exonerees
Streep was followed by recent Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee and folk music icon Joan Baez and Grammy Award-winning bassist and singer Esperanza Spalding, who both performed musical numbers. And to end the special night, 40 people from around the country who were wrongly convicted took to the stage. One of the most profound moments came during Philadelphia exoneree Anthony Wright’s speech, in which he dedicated the evening to Ledell Lee who was executed by Arkansas without the chance of DNA testing to prove his innocence.
Take a look at social media highlights from the night below.
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.
May 29, 2017 at 10:57 pm
May 27, 2017 at 5:57 pm
I used to argue to anyone who would listen that there are and were many innocent people in prison who are and were, in fact, totally innocent of the crimes charged. That was in the early 1990s. I knew of 2 in my own state of Connecticut, Peter Reilly and Richard LaPointe. Mechanically speaking, the Reilly case was much more difficult because he had to prove his innocence with little to no forensics to work with. My wife was certainly a great lady, but she refused to acknowledge that there was even one person who had been wrongly convicted. I take no pleasure in turning out to be right. Perhaps it is one percent of the prison population that was wrongly convicted. That one percent translates to maybe 100,000 or more, which is a huge number that should make ever lawyer and judge sick to their stomach.
To the staff at The Innocence Project, you are doing great work day in and day out. I’m only sorry that there’s no way it could ever be enough. I do keep tabs periodically and every time I look, the numbers are larger than at my last look. I have little money really. I say that only because I’d love to do something to help. The more who help, the better the chances that innocent people get out of prison. Keep up the great work!!
I would like some information on how i can help my son who was wrongly convicted. If you could please help me i would greatly appreciate. I dont know where else to turn, Thank You. My e mail is [email protected].