On International Wrongful Conviction Day, Dallas’s next generation of lawyers came face-to-face with those who’ve had no choice but to wait, held behind bars on crimes they didn’t commit.
It’s the second year that UNT Dallas College of Law’s Joyce Ann Brown Innocence Clinic has invited exonerees and read their names during a candlelight vigil.
It’s a celebration of freedom but also a reminder that an estimated 3,000 to 9,000 innocent Texans are still waiting to have their names cleared.
“The message to young lawyers and lawyers in training is we’ve got to get it right in the first place,” said law professor Cheryl Wattley.
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Wattley founded the Innocence Clinic. She said her students are taught that there’s no true compensation for those who’ve served time they didn’t deserve.
Among this year’s list of names was a new addition, Ben Spencer, who was exonerated on August 28.
Spencer was arrested in 1987 for a murder he didn’t commit.
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“For the 34 years that I was incarcerated, every morning I woke up I realized I was in a place that I didn’t deserve to be, and I kept hoping it was a nightmare and that I would wake up one day,” said Spencer.
Now free, he said he thinks daily about others waiting still waiting for justice and the need for programs and communities like this one.
“We don’t want to forget that we have a system that’s not perfect, and so it behooves us as citizens of Dallas at least to do what we can and play our role in making the system better to make it work for all people,” he said.
The Joyce Ann Brown Innocence Clinic was founded In 2016.
It's named for a Dallas woman who served more than nine years for an aggravated robbery she did not commit.
