Spring 2001: Does Capital Punishment Have a Future? Participants Shawn Armbrust Shawn Armbrust is Case Coordinator for the Center on Wrongful Convictions. Ms. Armbrust graduated with honors from the Medill School of Journalism in 1999. She previously worked as a White House intern, an intern for former Senator Carol Moseley-Braun, and a reporting intern for the Florida Times-Union. As part of Professor David Protess's investigative journalism class, her work with four of her classmates was instrumental in the February 1999 release of Anthony Porter, who spent sixteen years on Illinois death row for a crime he did not commit. Along with Protess and her classmates, she was honored at the Amnesty International Media Spotlight Awards, and has received the Legal Eagle Award from the Independent Voters of Illinois/Independent Precinct Organization, and the Advocates Award from Illinois Attorneys for Criminal Justice. Ms. Armbrust will be attending law school during the 2001-2002 school year. The Center on Wrongful Convictions at the Northwestern University School of Law is a clinical program dedicated to identifying and rectifying wrongful convictions and other serious miscarriages of justice. The Center is an outgrowth of the National Conference on Wrongful Convictions and the Death Penalty that Northwestern Law Professor Lawrence C. Marshall and others convened at the School of Law in November of 1998. The conference sensitized the public as never before, to the alarming number of innocent persons who have been sentenced to death in the United States, and made it possible to establish the Center with funding from the University, the law firm of Kirkland & Ellis, several foundations, and various private individual donors. The Center has three components (representation, research, and public education) all involving law students. Under the supervision of faculty and cooperating outside attorneys, students participate in the representation of imprisoned clients with claims of actual innocence or serious injustice. The research and public education components involve students in developing initiatives that raise public awareness of the prevalence, causes, and social costs of wrongful convictions and promote substantive reform of the criminal justice system. Information on the Anthony Porter case from Northern Illinois University Information on Anthony Porter’s case from the MacArthur Justice Center About Anthony Porter’s case from the News From the Chicago Tribune Back to Participants Spring 2001 Summit Home | Learning Links & Readings Student Activities| Participants | Transcripts National Online Youth Summit Home