Hear from two innocence litigators as they describe the harmful yet tantalizing power of faulty forensic evidence, and how it has been used to wrongly convict queer people of violent crimes. Queer author Valena Beety will discuss her book Manifesting Justice: Wrongly Convicted Women Reclaim Their Rights, in conversation with Innocence Project Strategic Litigation Director Chris Fabricant about his book Junk Science and the American Criminal Justice System. This night will be sure to take a bite out of crime… by exposing criminal falsehoods.

Join this event in-person at the Bureau

OR watch the live-stream of the event on the Bureau’s YouTube channel.

Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.

Suggested donation $10 to benefit the Bureau’s work.

All are welcome to attend, with or without donation.

We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register.

Safety protocol (for those joining in person):

In an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19:

If you have any symptoms associated with COVID-19 in the days leading up to the event, we ask you to please stay home.

Valena Beety is a former federal prosecutor and innocence litigator who represented Leigh Stubbs in post-conviction. She has successfully exonerated wrongfully convicted clients, obtained presidential grants of clemency for drug offenders, served as an elected board member of the national Innocence Network, and was appointed commissioner on the West Virginia Governor’s Indigent Defense Commission. She is currently a Professor of Law at Arizona State University Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law and the Deputy Director of the Academy for Justice, a criminal justice center at the law school that connects research with policy reform. Previously, she founded and directed the West Virginia Innocence Project at the West Virginia University College of Law and practiced as a Senior Staff Attorney at the Mississippi Innocence Project, representing clients on death row. Author Photo Credit Tavis Daniel.

CHRIS FABRICANT is the Innocence Project’s Director of Strategic Litigation and one of the nation’s leading experts on forensic sciences and the criminal justice system. Fabricant is featured in the Netflix documentary The Innocence Files and his public commentary has been published in virtually every major media outlet. A former public defender and clinical law professor, Fabricant brings to his writing over two decades of experience ranging from litigating death penalty cases in the Deep South to misdemeanors in the South Bronx. Born in New York City and raised in Sedona, Arizona, Fabricant has lived in Brooklyn since graduating from George Washington University Law School in 1997.