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How to Regain Your Freedom: A Talk with Jeffery Deskovic and Lorenzo Johnson
Join us for an inspiring online event where you can learn from two incredible exonerees. Jeffery Deskovic and Lorenzo Johnson will share their personal stories of wrongful conviction and how they fought tirelessly to regain their freedom.
Through this captivating talk, you'll gain valuable insights into the criminal justice system and the challenges faced by those who are wrongfully incarcerated and eventually exonerated. Discover the strategies and resources that Jeffery and Lorenzo utilized to prove their innocence and secure their release.
Don't miss this unique opportunity to hear firsthand accounts of resilience and determination.
About the Speakers:
Jeffery Deskovic
Jeffrey Deskovic is an internationally recognized wrongful conviction expert and the Founder of The Jeffrey Deskovic Foundation for Justice, which has freed 13 wrongfully convicted people and passed three laws aimed at preventing wrongful conviction, while another 6 were passed via the coalition group It Can Happen To You, which the Foundation is part of. The Foundation is currently doing policy work in NY, Pennsylvania, and California. Jeff is a Global Advisory Council member of Restorative Justice International and part of the Right To Remain Silent coalition.
Jeff’s body of work includes delivering hundreds of presentations, media interviews, authoring hundreds of articles, adjunct teaching a wrongful conviction college course twice, and serving as a Continued Legal Education instructor in front of judicial gatherings, District Attorney Offices, public defender organizations; and sharing best practices and ethics with law enforcement entities. He recently had his first success as a lawyer, serving as co-counsel in overturning Andre Brown’s wrongful conviction after 23 years in prison. Jeff owns the Recharge Beyond The Bars Re-Entry Game, which facilitates reintegration of formerly incarcerated people through ice-breaker questions aimed at promoting healthy expression of topics related to imprisonment and life afterwards. His advocacy work has been recognized by his receipt of numerous awards. Jeff’s motivation is that he served 16 years in prison – from age 17 to 32 –for a murder and rape he did not commit before being exonerated by DNA testing. Jeff’s life post-exoneration is the subject of the documentary short, Conviction.
The Foundation assisted Lorenzo Johnson with reintegration when he was originally released, and then when his wrongful conviction was reinstated, drove him back to prison to resume a life without parole sentence while efforts to free him resumed. The Foundation was part of a 5 team collaboration that assisted Lorenzo in regaining his freedom, and assisted him on the morale level while reimprisoned. Upon regaining his freedom, The Foundation again assisted him in reintegrating back into society.
Lorenzo Johnson
When Lorenzo Johnson was told by police in 1995 that they believed he had murdered someone the previous night, he was incredulous. He explained to them he had been in New York City, not Harrisburg, PA where the crime occurred the previous night. Mr. Johnson told the authorities that he had traveled to New York with other people who could vouch for him. He also told them he would never harm anyone. Nevertheless, he was arrested, charged, convicted, and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
The conviction was based on such thin and circumstantial evidence that the Third Circuit Court of Appeals—which only decided his case after he had already served 16 years in prison—vacated his conviction on the grounds that there had been insufficient evidence to convict him in the first place.
Mr. Johnson lived as a free man for the next 148 days until the hammer fell again. The U.S. Supreme Court reversed the Third Circuit, without granting briefing or argument, and reinstated Mr. Johnson’s conviction.
It took another six years before new evidence demonstrated that Mr. Johnson had been telling the truth all along and that prosecutors had for years withheld critical exculpatory evidence from him and his attorneys. Even when this new evidence was finally released to him, prosecutors threatened to fight his case on procedural grounds for years more if he didn’t agree to a nolo contendere plea to third degree murder. Mr. Johnson reluctantly and against his deepest moral misgivings, finally agreed and since leaving prison—after 22 years behind bars for a wrongful conviction— he has fought and continues to fight tirelessly, day and night, to help the many others who have been wrongfully convicted to find the justice they deserve.
Mr. Johnson is thrilled to be working as a Senior Adviser for CUNY Law School’s Second Look Project.
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