Equal Justice Works Symposium To Focus On Wrongful Convictions

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. - Equal Justice Works, a legal organization at the University of Arkansas School of Law, will present "Innocence Lost: A Symposium on Wrongful Convictions" at 12:30 p.m., Tuesday March 9, in the school's courtroom.

Court TV host and commentator James Curtis, Philadelphia attorney J. Gordon Cooney and Paragould, Ark., attorney Dan Stidham, a 1987 alumnus of the School of Law, will serve as panelists for the event, which will delve into a variety of cases involving wrongful convictions.

Cooney and another partner were able to get a man off of death row and out of prison in2003 because of DNA testing after 15 years of incarceration from a 1985 conviction. Cooney is an adjunct lecturer in law at Villanova University Law School and is in litigation practice at Morgan Lewis in Philadelphia.

Stidham was elected to the position of District Court Judge of Greene County in 2000. He was appointed to represent a member of the "West Memphis Three" defendants who were accused of killing three 8-year-old boys in 1993 in what police maintain was a satanic ritual. Stidham is the only original attorney still working the case, and for the last 10 years has been actively investigating the murder case pro bono as it moves through the appeals stage.

Equal Justice Works is a student-run organization whose purpose is to promote knowledge and interest in public interest law, to encourage students to participate in public interest internships, to broaden the scope of their legal education, to foster outside educational experiences through such internships and judicial clerkships and to aid in a financial manner those students who might not ordinarily be able to afford voluntary and lower paid outside employment opportunities in the legal community,