Flags at UIS mark International Wrongful Conviction Day

Posted on October 1, 2021
The Illinois Innocence Project – based at University of Illinois Springfield – is marking International Wrongful Conviction Day. (Photo courtesy: Dave Dahl/WJBC)

By Dave Dahl

SPRNGIELD – The flags on the University of Illinois Springfield quad tell the story: almost three thousand of them, each representing a wrongful conviction. They’re black, except for the 359 blue ones, representing those in Illinois. 

Christine Ferree, program director of case evaluation of the Illinois Innocence Project, says she is not trying to help criminals get off the hook.

“We only take claims of actual, factual innocence,” Ferree said. “We get about 350 requests a year. Our requests are vetted by our staff. But there is what seems like there’s a possibility that there was a wrongful conviction, that they’re claiming actual innocence.”

Ferree says coerced confessions or other tactics by bad-acting police and prosecutors make up only a rather small part of the problem; many result from well-intended but incorrect eyewitnesses or misidentifications out of a police lineup.

Friday was International Wrongful Conviction Day.

Dave Dahl can be reached at [email protected].

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