2025-05-26
42 分钟This is The Guardian.
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We thought we could change the world.
How an idealistic fight against miscarriages of justice turned sour by Francisco Garcia.
Read by Nicholas Cam.
The press conference began at 2.30pm on the 2nd of September 2004 at the Wills Memorial Building,
the grand neo-gothic home to the University of Bristol's School of Law.
Michael Norton, a charismatic,
fast-talking lecturer in sociology and criminal law, addressed the assembled media.
If what he was attempting sounded radical,
it was only a reflection of an increasingly dire situation, Norton told a BBC reporter.
There was no way of sugarcoating it, he said.
The criminal justice system was failing the rising number of people who were claiming they had been wrongfully convicted and who remained stuck in prison without any hope of exoneration.
Norton was launching the Bristol University Innocence Project to address this crisis.
The premise was clear enough.
Idealistic law students, under academic supervision and with pro bono legal support,
would investigate potential miscarriages of justice with the goal of preparing cases for appeal.
Though the concept was well established in the US and Australia,