Community Brainstorming Conference to discuss wrongful conviction
Lawyers, a former death-row inmate and a civil rights advocate will discuss issues surrounding wrongful convictions at Saturday’s Community Brainstorming Conference.
The session will feature the case of Alphonso James of Milwaukee. James was 17 years old when a jury found him guilty in the 1985 strangling of a 54-year-old man. He was sentenced as an adult to life in prison and has served time in six different facilities over the past 23 years. He has maintained his innocence, and many people believe him and have worked to have his case re-examined.
Among the panelists will be former Texas death-row inmate Christopher Ochoa, who was freed after DNA evidence proved his innocence. After he was freed, he went to law school at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and worked on James’ case with the Wisconsin Innocence Project, which had helped clear him. Also scheduled to appear is Madison civil rights lawyer Ed Garvey.
Author Steve Rose, who started the Justice 4 James organization in 2001, said James has never filed an appeal because of lack of physical evidence.
“The main thing right now is to bring awareness to the case so we can have this thing looked at by the powers that be,” he said.
The Wisconsin Innocence Project picked up the case in the late 1990s and found that improperly stored DNA evidence used in the case could not be used to exonerate James.