The U.S.-Asia Law Institute hosted Chris Fabricant, director of strategic litigation at The Innocence Project, for a virtual talk about his new book, Junk Science and the American Criminal Justice System. The Taiwan Innocence Project and Innocence Project Japan co-hosted the event on June 8, 2022.
Event Recording: Trends in the Innocence Movement in Asia and the U.S.
Please join us for a discussion of recent developments in "Innocence" work in Asia and the United States. Experts from China, Japan, Taiwan and the U.S. will discuss significant trends in exonerating the innocent with special panels focusing on the exclusion of junk science from evidence and the positive and negative roles played by prosecutors, that is, sometimes supporting exonerations and contributing to wrongful convictions.
The Economist: Righting wrongs - China is growing more willing to review dodgy convictions
[Event Recap & Videos] Preventing Miscarriages of Justice in Asia
![[Event Recap & Videos] Preventing Miscarriages of Justice in Asia](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/55d21ffee4b0d22e803fdca1/1586463384478-ENEPAM1QO46DNAIGMIAW/Eli.JPG)
On April 1, 2020. Senior Research Fellow Ira Belkin and USALI staff Allen Clayton-Greene, Amy Gao, Yin Chi, and Eli Blood-Patterson introduce the U.S.-Asia Law Institute's (USALI) program: "Preventing and Redressing Wrongful Convictions." Through this program, international experts, including individuals who themselves had been wrongfully convicted and later exonerated, shared their experience and state-of-the-art expertise with the Asian criminal justice community concerning the root causes of wrongful convictions and measures that can be adopted to prevent them and redress them.
Event Recap: Exonerated! From Central Park to East Asia
Wrongful convictions occur in every jurisdiction, and legal professionals around the world should collaborate to redress and prevent them. That was the message of ‘Exonerated! From Central Park to East Asia,’ a speaker event held at the law school on Tuesday, October 8, 2019 by the U.S.-Asia Law Institute (USALI) and co-sponsored by the Center on the Administration of Criminal Law and Asia Law Society.
Osaka High Court clears grandmother in an SBS case
Announcing the Innocence Film Festival from Taiwan Innocence Project
To spread awareness of the problem of wrongful convictions, the Taiwan Innocence Project will be hosting its first “Innocence Film Festival” from December 11 through December 15, 2019 in Taipei, Taiwan, featuring 18 domestic and foreign documentary and fact-based dramas that depict miscarriages of justice in Taiwan, the United States, Japan, Iceland, the Philippines and other countries. See the trailer and poster below. More details will be made public soon.
A Canary in a Coal Mine｜礦井中的金絲雀——記紐約大學冤案實習計畫
Redress through Science: "Innocence Movement" symposium held in Kyoto
"An American Perspective on Capital Punishment in Japan"
In May 2019 “An American Perspective on Capital Punishment in Japan” written by David T. Johnson, Professor of University of Hawaii at Mano’a was published. This volume was edited by Kana Sasakura Professor of Law at Konan University and Wrongful Convictions Program participant.
About the publication:
The death penalty of Aum Shinrinkyo’s Shoko Asahara is one of the most notable instances of capital punishment in Japan. Among modernized countries, Japan and the United States are exceptions for exception amoungst developed countries. This publication provides detailed analysis of the secret execution, the culture of denial in Japanese criminal justice, and the Japanese political society surrounding the death penalty system.
Introduction
Japanese-language reviews and articles:
Book Launch in China: Pre-trial Detention & Police Interrogation
On May 29, 2018, the U.S.-Asia Law Institute (USALI) of NYU School of Law held a book launch for the release of their two newest publications, Questioning Police Interrogation Methods: A Comparative Study and The Evolution of Pretrial Detention Law: A Comparative Study. These two books are products of multi-year projects undertaken by USALI, featuring a variety of articles written by leading legal scholars, social scientists and law practitioners from the U.S., the UK and P.R. China about the important and evolving fields of pretrial detention and police interrogation methods.
April 1, 2019: Wrongful Convictions Observer
We were delighted to see this article by USALI long-term partner Judge Jed Rakoff in this week's New York Review of Books, regarding the problem of inaccurate eyewitness identifications and also responding thoughtfully to how this problem might be addressed in an age where the majority of criminal matters are disposed of by plea bargain.
Wrongful Convictions Observer
There have been several important legal developments in Australia and New Zealand over the past two weeks relating to the use of DNA evidence in criminal investigations. The first takes place in Australia's second largest state - Victoria. The second development is that the New Zealand Law Commission (a government funded law reform body) will soon close its public submissions period for its study The Use of DNA in Criminal Investigations.
Wrongful Convictions Observer
Two great pieces on junk science litigation and investigations this week:
The first, from the ABA Journal, tracks a lawsuit by the Innocence Project against the National Museum of Health and Medicine of the Department of Defense seeking disclosure of the records of the American Board of Forensic Odontologists (ABFO) (aka "the bite mark experts"), more here:
January 2019 Wrongful Convictions Lecture Tour in China
In January 2019, as part of our project on the Prevention and Redress of Wrongful Convictions, USALI launched its fourth lecture trip to China with a special focus on forensic science and wrongful convictions. The trip was composed of four lectures/round-table discussions at China University of Political Science and Law, Nankai University, and Renmin University.
Announcing Spring 2019 Course: Comparative Criminal Justice: China & Japan
USALI Executive Director Ira Belkin and Adjunct Professor at NYU Law Takashi Maruta will present a new offering at NYU Law for Spring 2019. This class is available for NYU Law Students, as well as auditors.
USALI’s May 2018 Trip to China: Preventing Wrongful Convictions – Police Interrogations and False Confessions
In May 2018, the U.S.-Asia Law Institute (USALI) traveled to China as part of its continuing program to work with partners in Asia to prevent and redress wrongful convictions. Working with Chinese partner institutions, we convened several events in Beijing and Shanghai to share the research and expertise of Western scholars on one of the leading causes of wrongful convictions in the U.S. and around the world: false confessions.
2018 Spring Festival Message
2017 Summary of Activities
USALI Visits East China University of Political Science and Law (ECUPL)
As part of our work on preventing and redressing wrongful convictions, the U.S.-Asia Law Institute partnered with NYU Law Professor Erin E. Murphy, a nationally recognized expert on DNA typing, whose research focuses on technology and DNA evidence and whose work has been cited multiple times by the Supreme Court.