By Marcy MirandaThe Daily Northwestern
According to Rob Warden, executive director of Northwestern’s Center on Wrongful Convictions, “nobody emerges whole” after being imprisoned although innocent.
“They are all damaged human beings,” he said.
Warden served on a panel presentation about exonerations Tuesday night in McCormick Auditorium. The panel also featured Gary Gauger, a former inmate featured in the “The Exonerated,” a show based on the stories of six men who were released from prison years after having been convicted.
The show, which is is playing this weekend in the Jones Residential College Great Room, depicts the ways in which prisoners and their families were affected by the convictions.
NU’s Center on Wrongful Convictions made headlines Monday when a Chicago man convicted of raping a woman in 1981 was exonerated with the center’s help. Jerry Miller was the 200th person to be exonerated of a crime because of DNA testing.
Warden said DNA is becoming “incredibly important” in trials.
“DNA has been the gold standard of proving cases,” Warden said, adding that there are other methods used to prove someone’s innocence, such as fingerprints or contradicting testimony.
Gauger, who was also freed with the center’s help, was convicted of murdering his parents in McHenry County in northern Illinois in 1993. During his trial, prosecutors said Gauger confessed to the crime, although Gauger denied making any actual confession. Four years later, an investigation of a Wisconsin motorcycle gang uncovered members discussing a murder they committed, Warden said. The taped confession was the main evidence used to release Gauger.
The primary suspect has been excluded thanks to DNA evidence 25 percent of the time since the FBI began using DNA testing, Warden said. With 2 million people in prison, an error rate of one percent would mean 20,000 innocent people would be imprisoned. Warden said he believes the real number of innocent prisoners is higher.
“The Exonerated” is the second play produced by Spectrum, one of NU’s newest student theater groups, said Communication sophomore Anne Valauri, the show’s assistant producer. Director Aurelia Clunie, a Communication junior, said Spectrum produces “issue-based theater” about socially-challenging topics.
“The show deals with issues of institutional racism, poverty and the prison system,” Valauri said. “A lot of the stories are about people being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Warden and the play’s producers said they are hopeful that through the show, more people will be exposed to problems in the justice system.
“This play points out the flaws in the system,” Warden said.
Clunie said she hopes students understand the issues within prisons.
“When people go into the system, they become invisible,” she said.
Warden referred to the judicial system as “terribly flawed” because it is a system based on human judgment, which is by definition “fallible,” he said.
“We are never going to eliminate the mistakes,” Warden said. “(But) we have reduced them significantly.”
Reach Marcy Miranda at [email protected].
