Convicting the Guilty and Exonerating the Innocent in Massachusetts: BBA Task Force Outlines Roadmap for Criminal Justice Reforms

BOSTON – The Boston Bar Association will convene a news conference to release a ground-breaking new report called Getting It Right: Improving the Accuracy and Reliability of the Criminal Justice System in Massachusetts. The BBA Task Force that produced this report is the broadest group of major players in the criminal justice system ever assembled to address wrongful convictions. The Task Force operated on the central premise that for every defendant wrongly convicted, a criminal goes free, and society remains at risk while the individual who has escaped the consequences of his actions is free to commit crimes against other victims.

When:
December 16, 2009 at 10 a.m.

Where: 
Boston Bar Association
16 Beacon Street
Boston, MA 02108

Participants:
Members of the BBA Task Force on Preventing Wrongful Convictions

David E. Meier, Partner, Todd & Weld and Martin F. Murphy, Partner, Foley Hoag (Co-Chairs)

Edward F. Davis, Commissioner, Boston Police Department

James M. Connolly, Major, Massachusetts State Police

Hon. Christopher J. Armstrong, Dwyer & Collora, former Chief Justice, Massachusetts Appeals Court

William J. Leahy, Chief Counsel, Committee for Public Counsel Services

Randy Gioia, Law Office of Randy Gioia

David M. Siegel, Professor, New England Law | Boston

Elizabeth A. Lunt, Partner, Zalkind, Rodriguez, Lunt & Duncan

Joseph F. Savage, Jr., Partner, Goodwin Procter

Sejal H. Patel, Law Office of Sejal H. Patel

Copies of the report will be made available at the news conference.