ATLANTA—Barry C. Scheck, co-founder and co-director of the Innocence Project and professor of law at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University, will deliver the 61st annual Henry J. Miller Distinguished Lecture at Georgia State University College of Law at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, April 5. The event is invitation-only.
The Innocence Project is a national litigation and public policy organization dedicated to exonerating wrongfully convicted people through DNA testing and reform of the criminal justice system to prevent future injustices. Scheck will discuss “Big Data, Brady and Defenders.”
“We are excited to have a pillar of the legal community and a national voice for the underserved deliver the Miller Lecture,” said Jessica Gabel Cino, associate dean for academic affairs and associate professor of law. “His work on innocence cases has inspired so many students and lawyers for generations. It truly will be a special event for the audience and our students.”
Scheck also will speak on a panel at the Georgia State University Law Review Symposium, “From the Crime Scene to the Courtroom: The Future of Forensic Science Reform,” on April 6. For more information and to register, visit law.gsu.edu/2018-symposium.
Scheck co-directs with co-founder Peter Neufeld the Innocence Project, which is closely affiliated with Cardozo Law School. The project has helped exonerate 354 individuals in the United States through post-conviction DNA testing. It also assists police, prosecutors and defense attorneys in reforming many areas of the criminal justice system, including eyewitness identification procedures, interrogation methods, crime laboratory administration and forensic science research.
In his 40 years on the Cardozo faculty, Scheck has served as the director of clinical education and co-director of the Trial Advocacy Programs and the Jacob Burns Center for the Study of Law and Ethics. He worked previously for three years as a staff attorney at the Legal Aid Society in New York City.
He also is a partner in the law firm Neufeld, Scheck & Brustin, specializing in civil rights and constitutional litigation. The firm is frequently retained by victims of police brutality, pursuing civil rights claims in the courts and institutional reform.
Scheck has done extensive trial and appellate litigation in significant civil rights and criminal defense cases, and has published broadly in these areas, including a book with Jim Dwyer and Peter Neufeld, “Actual Innocence: When Justice Goes Wrong And How To Make It Right.”
Scheck is a former commissioner on New York State’s Forensic Science Review Board (1994-2016) and has served as president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (2004-2005) and on the National Institute of Justice's Commission on the Future of DNA Evidence (1998-2000). He is a member of the Legal Resource Committee of the Organization of Scientific Area Committees run by the National Institute of Standards and Technology.
He earned his bachelor’s degree, magna cum laude, from Yale University and in his juris doctor degree from Boalt Hall School of Law at the University of California at Berkeley.