Ohio Innocence Project to Host Death Penalty Community Roundtable

The Ohio Innocence Project is collaborating with the Jones Center for Race, Gender and Social Justice to present a program that features two sessions related to the death penalty on Friday, November 1. The program will begin at 9:45 a.m. and conclude at 1:15 p.m. via Zoom and is free and open to the public.

In the first program session, a federal public defender who handles death penalty cases, Erin Gallagher Barnhart, will discuss how she helped a Cincinnati man, Lamont Hunter, gain freedom after 16 years on death row for the murder and rape of a child. Lamont was wrongfully convicted due to several factors, including an inadequate defense attorney. Lamont will also speak in the session. This case is a reminder of the risk we take in maintaining the death penalty in Ohio.

In the second session, Dr. Rob Norris will present his research which focuses on how wrongful convictions impact the decision-making of legislators and other policy makers. He is co-author of a new book, The Politics of Innocence.

Since 1989, more than 3,500 people have been exonerated after being wrongfully convicted and imprisoned in the United States. Among these exonerees, nearly 200 innocent people were sentenced to death, including 11 from Ohio's death row.

The mission of the Tiffin University undergraduate chapter of the Ohio Innocence Project (OIP-u) is to spread awareness of the problem of wrongful convictions. Since its inception in 2003, the Ohio Innocence Project has released 42 wrongfully convicted Ohioans who have spent over 800 years total in prison for crimes they did not commit.

For more information and to register, please contact Dr. Steven Hurwitz at [email protected] no later than Thursday, October 24 at 10 p.m. with your name and email address.