Upcoming Events
The Trinity College Chapter of the ACLU of Connecticut will hold a discussion about medical marijuana at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, Dec. 8, 2011 in the college's Fred Common Room, 300 Summit St., Hartford. Speakers will include John Lorenzo of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, David Haseltine of the University of Connecticut's Students for Sensible Drug Policy and Cliff Thornton, a board member of the ACLU of Connecticut.
PAST EVENTS
Juan Melendez, who spent 17 years, 8 months and 1 day on death row in Florida for a crime he did not commit, and was finally exonerated, spoke at Trinity College Thursday, December 2 to a crowd of over 100 students, faculty, and community members.
Juan Melendez is one of 138 people in the United States to have been wrongfully convicted for a crime, sentenced to death and later exonerated.
Melendez, who could not afford an attorney, was convicted and sentenced to death within a week even though there was no physical evidence against him. He was convicted based on the testimony of two witnesses - one a police informant with a criminal record and the other a co-defendant who received a sentence of two years probation after testifying against Juan. He appealed his conviction to the Florida Supreme Court three times and was denied each time.
Had it not been for the fortuitous discovery of a transcript of the taped confession of the real killer sixteen years after Melendez was sentenced to death, he almost certainly would have been executed. Ultimately, it came to light that the real killer had confessed to more than sixteen people and the prosecutor had systematically withheld exculpatory evidence.
See article in Trinity Tripod
|
