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S4E08: The New Jersey Innocence Project, with Nyssa Taylor
23 Plays1 year ago
Nyssa Taylor, Managing Staff Attorney at the New Jersey Innocence Project at Rutgers University, joins Co-Dean Rose Cuison-Villazor to discuss her work as a public defender and how that led her to head up this new project at Rutgers Law School.
The Power of Attorney is produced by Rutgers Law School. With two locations minutes from Philadelphia and New York City, Rutgers Law offers the prestige and reputation of a large, nationally known university combined with a personal, small campus experience. Learn more by visiting law.rutgers.edu.
Production Manager: Shanida Carter
Series Producer & Editor: Nate Nakao
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Transcript
Introductions at Rutgers Law School
00:00:08
Speaker
Hello, this is Rose Guizan-Viazor. I am the interim co-dean of Rutgers Law School in Newark, and this is the power of attorney.
00:00:21
Speaker
I'm joined today by one of my colleagues, Nisa Taylor. She currently works in the Incense Project of Rutgers Law School. It's a new project that we launched recently, and so we'll talk about that. But first, Nisa, let me give you a chance to introduce yourself.
Nisa Taylor's Role and Motivations
00:00:39
Speaker
Thank you so much, Rose. My name is, again, Nisa Taylor, and I am delighted to be starting the New Jersey Innocence Project at Rutgers University.
00:00:51
Speaker
I joined Rutgers in September and am thrilled to be here working on this very important work. So, Nisa, I'd like to start by asking you your origin story. And here by that I mean tell me about your background, your motivations for your work, why you're doing what you're doing, how you got to where you are.
00:01:16
Speaker
I decided to go to law school because I knew that I wanted to do public service. I had the wonderful benefit of
00:01:27
Speaker
I went to a Catholic high school, I am not Catholic, but I had wonderful social justice nuns as teachers. And I felt like from a very young age, it felt very important to do work that was moral and ethical and in the service of others.
00:01:45
Speaker
And I knew generally that I wanted to do public interest work. I wasn't quite sure. But when I went to law school, I had a clinical, my third year of law school, and that was with the Defender Association of Philadelphia. And it was that clinical that I realized, aha, I want to be a public defender. This is it. Trial advocacy was, I loved it. I loved meeting with the clients.
Career in Public Defense
00:02:15
Speaker
And I also realized spending time in jail with my clients how utterly awful it is, what a disastrous thing we are doing to human beings when we incarcerate them, and the horrific impact of incarceration on black and brown individuals and communities, and realized that I could not be doing more important work than working as a public defender. So I went from law school directly to the Defender Association of Philadelphia,
00:02:45
Speaker
and was there for a little over a decade. After the Defender Association, I spent a year working at Rowan University as a Title IX manager, but then quickly came back to criminal law and had the benefit of working for the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania.
00:03:06
Speaker
as their Criminal Justice Strategic Litigation and Policy Council. It's a lot of words, but basically I was still just trying to get people out of jail in a different format. I was doing litigation targeted toward mostly pre-trial detention, and when COVID hit, really trying to get people out of jail under the circumstances of the really awful conditions of prison during the pandemic.
00:03:32
Speaker
and which I might add are still going on today in many cases. And then I'm delighted to have come here where I am again still trying to get people out of jail. Well, thank you for that. You've done such incredible, compelling work and I'm grateful to you for the work that you've done and for choosing to come to Rutgers to continue the criminal justice work that you've embarked upon since you were in law school. I'm curious though, going back to law school, you said,
00:04:01
Speaker
Your clinical experience was what opened up for you, a path in public interest work, in criminal law. I wonder though,
00:04:15
Speaker
Was there ever a time while in law school or soon after that you could have worked for the other side as a prosecutor? Because there are those who would say that if you want to change incarceration policies or those who are charged, those who are tried, the government, through the prosecutors, they have discretion to be able to choose who they're going to bring to the criminal justice system.
00:04:40
Speaker
So was there ever time from your perspective that you thought maybe working for the other side might help you get to get the result that you want? No, not not really I will say I did a very brief stint in college where I worked for victims of domestic violence and have a had a great deal of respect and
00:05:06
Speaker
for the work that the family violence district attorneys were doing who were representing mostly women as victims of violence. But once I began to work in the clinical and spend time with clients, I quickly realized there was no way that I could be responsible for sending someone to jail. Even if I had discretion to send them for jail at a less time, I realized that it would not be something I could live
00:05:36
Speaker
within myself. I also really loved having my clients assigned. There's a way in which I really liked the absence of discretion. I liked knowing that I had a responsibility to act zealously on behalf of my clients and was not responsible for
00:06:01
Speaker
You know, for the kind of discretion that I think judges and district attorneys really, and police, I will say, also really hold. I loved working with clients and I liked placing that responsibility in their hands, you know, and not in mine.
Law School Reflections
00:06:19
Speaker
That's really powerful to hear. And I'm glad that you came to that conclusion when you were still in law school. And I mean, that's critical. Many of our law students who are listening right now or those who are potential law students are trying to get some guidance on their career paths, why they should go to law school, what is their motivation. So it's really empowering to hear you talk about how you concluded that you just
00:06:48
Speaker
for yourself, you did not want to be part of the system that incarcerated the clients that you've worked with. And so you did that for about 10 years where these are individual cases that you worked on. Can you walk us through the path from when you started after law school to 10 years later? Yeah, thank you. So,
00:07:13
Speaker
At the Defender, the Defender Association of Philadelphia has a slightly different model of representation in that they represent people horizontally rather than vertically, which means you are assigned to handle rooms rather than single cases from start to finish.
00:07:34
Speaker
Um, and I'm not going to go into all the benefits and negatives of that kind of representation, but let's just, so I started out handling misdemeanor cases and preliminary hearings. Um, and then I moved into felony waiver cases. So judge trials of felony cases. And then after two and a half years, I moved into a major's room where I was handling serious felonies before judges or juries.
00:07:59
Speaker
And I did that for about five years and then had the extreme luck to wind up in the appeals division.
00:08:08
Speaker
at the Defender Association where I got to write and work on direct appeals post-conviction. But I was also very lucky to have wonderful bosses who let me keep jury trials and take cases I was interested in. And so I was able to keep my foot in the trial room while at the same time working on clients' direct appeals and thinking strategically about larger litigation issues to work on through direct appeal.
00:08:37
Speaker
So when you were in law school, go back a few years before that, were there some classes that you took that you felt prepared you well for the kind of career that you chose for yourself? Evidence, evidence, evidence. I joke, but it's, you know, I really, I loved my evidence class. I feel like it was like a toolbox that you like pick up, especially as a defense attorney, knowing evidence really well,
00:09:07
Speaker
gives you a leg up in court.
00:09:10
Speaker
that those who don't know it just don't have. So I am very grateful for that course. Criminal procedure, I took those as well. And the other course actually I really enjoyed and appreciated was also administrative law. It wasn't directly related to criminal law, but it felt like another really important arena of law where so many, I wanna say so many poor people get really,
00:09:39
Speaker
screwed over and learning the the information in that in that class was also just really helpful and interesting to learn about. I took evidence in law school also and my professor was great but I just evidence and I just did not
00:10:02
Speaker
And then later when I was in a practice law, it wasn't a subject that came up. I was sort of a litigator, but I was more of a community-based community organizer and impact litigation kind of work. But I recognize the importance of evidence, particularly for those who want to do
00:10:25
Speaker
litigation and in your case, certainly it was, I can see that the subject was important for the kind of work that you were doing. Going back again still to law school, what were some of the, tell us about the challenging moments that you went through while you were in law school.
Pre-Law School Experiences
00:10:48
Speaker
You know, I think I had taken a couple years off between college and law school, and I think that was one of the best, it was wonderful for me to have that perspective of working a little bit before going back to law school. You know, I,
00:11:07
Speaker
I really had a wonderful group of friends in law school. So I can't really say too much. I mean, I felt like I really, for the most part, enjoyed law school because I really liked the friends that I was with. And then once I found criminal law and the professors that I connected with, that really was a wonderful experience.
00:11:30
Speaker
I got very sick my third year of law school and was incredibly grateful for my school to support me in graduating and I was able to take the bar and start working. So I will say that when I think of challenges, I think of the illness of third year, but that was hopefully the students will not be experiencing that. But if you are experiencing illness,
00:11:55
Speaker
I will just say, I would imagine the administration was far more supportive and I was really grateful to have had that support from the administration as I completed my year.
00:12:06
Speaker
Of course, given that your alma mater is one of our competitor law students, so I was not even going to mention the names. But given what you said, I think that's great that you got the support from the administration. And then all kidding aside, I completely agree with you. When law students get sick,
00:12:28
Speaker
It's at least in my experience both as an administrator and then also as law professor that the law schools are genuinely there to help students get through classes and then also to make it through.
00:12:45
Speaker
the bar exam. And so I'm glad that you got the support that you needed. What did you do between college and law school? You said you took two years off. I worked as a paralegal. I actually for a criminal defense attorney in New York. Okay. All right. It's really interesting to me that when students take some time off between college
00:13:07
Speaker
and law school, even a year, but the longer the time spent, the perspectives and what they can share in the classroom are rich.
Transition to Policy Work
00:13:21
Speaker
I like to teach in the part-time program in the evening, and I've had students who are
00:13:29
Speaker
who are doctors and nurses and teachers, police officers. And so I'm of course with them, those are their full-time jobs, but then there are also these other students who have worked for a long time. And it's really interesting to see that, to hear about their perspectives on the law. And not to say that not going to law, not taking time off is,
00:13:54
Speaker
This is not to critique those who chose to go to law school right away, but this is just a comment on how someone like you after two years, I'm sure in the classroom, you've just had this different kind of view about seeing things because you've been out there working for some time before going back to the classroom.
00:14:13
Speaker
I feel like it also just helps put things in perspective. After working for a couple years, well, first of all, I think it also puts finances in perspective, which is an important lesson to learn. I had to pay student loans, and I understood what that meant when I was applying to law school.
00:14:33
Speaker
You know, yeah, yeah, I think I will also say I did a lot of hiring for the Defender Association. And one of the things that I often look for was whether someone, it didn't even have to be legal work, right? I would always appreciated people who worked in the food industry because I knew that servers, waiters and waitresses are often really good at dealing with stressful situations. And that's work experience that I would often appreciate.
00:15:00
Speaker
as a former food server. And so I think it's interesting that all those different experiences really can lend to just, I don't wanna say more clarity necessarily, but can help enrich someone's experience. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so you worked as a public defender, and then after that you decided, you switched over to, I'm trying to remember whether this is when you went over to the ACLU or did you,
00:15:27
Speaker
There was some time that you did some Title IX work. Yes, yes. I was a Title IX manager at Rowan University, so investigating allegations of sexual assault and sexual harassment by students.
00:15:43
Speaker
And then you, then that's after that. And then you went back where you went to. That's right. Yeah. And at that point you were litigation strategists. Um, and, and so outside of the, of the courtroom now, right? I mean, you're doing more impact litigation work. Yes. Yeah. So I, it was a lot of policy work. So a lot of time, you know, working in the legislation, uh, working with our legislative director, working to change court rules. But, and then as you said, the impact litigation, strategic impact litigation, where I was,
00:16:13
Speaker
Not in the courtroom. So tell what was that experience like for you after especially after having been in the clock in the courtroom for many many years and now you're removed from that and then you're doing some work in the in the area but that the kind of actual work is different.
00:16:33
Speaker
Very interesting. I mean, I was very grateful to have the opportunity to think strategically about these issues that I struggled with as a public defender, things that made me crazy as a public defender. Probation detainers, for example, someone's on probation, they get arrested.
Challenges in Defending Clients
00:16:52
Speaker
a detainer is lodged by the probation department. And that detainer will keep people in custody until their new case is resolved. So it can be something as minor as a misdemeanor and they will sit for months, years waiting for the resolution of that case. That drove me crazy as a public defender because you have all these people in jail that shouldn't be in jail pretrial. And so when I was able to think about that and to start strategizing litigation and to combat that and policy,
00:17:20
Speaker
That felt like a real gift to work on that. I also really loved, I spent a lot of time interviewing clients in rural Pennsylvania and different counties across the state and really loved the client-related work, so that felt similar. But I did sometimes miss the trial work and the oral advocacy that I was used to at the Defender.
00:17:47
Speaker
So I'll ask a question of you that I often ask my friends who are public defenders. And I'm curious to hear your response. I'm sure you've heard this question before. This is a question that is often asked of public defenders. When representing your clients, does it matter to you whether they are innocent
00:18:09
Speaker
of the crime or not. Of course, we understand that the law provides that a person is deemed innocent until proven guilty otherwise. But when you're with a client, do you ask that question? I mean, I'd like to know your process in your representation, whether it matters to you at all, whether your client actually did the crime or not.
00:18:34
Speaker
In terms of, so the short answer is no, it did not matter to me at all whether my client had committed the crime or not. And at the same time, it was important for me to have a very realistic assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of that person's case.
00:18:52
Speaker
So if the person had committed the crime and there was a very good case against them and we were likely to lose a trial, then that was a real conversation that I had to have about pleas. And I will say a lot of my client conversations were with clients about plea bargains because doing my job isn't necessarily
00:19:14
Speaker
If you lose a trial, that's a loss. And if you could have saved them 5, 10, 15 years by pleading them to a better deal, that's a victory, even though it doesn't always feel like it.
00:19:28
Speaker
But one of the things I loved about being a public defender is that I didn't have to worry about whether they were innocent or guilty. That was the DA's job. And I never believed we should judge someone by the worst thing they've done. I certainly know I wouldn't want to be judged on the worst moment of my life. And the other thing I will always say, and I've said this before, is that in every courtroom, I call it the hospital face. There is always someone with a hospital face.
00:19:57
Speaker
It's a mom or a grandmom or a daughter who doesn't want to see their loved one go to jail. And so even when people were guilty, if getting them out meant they could stay with their families and getting a not guilty meant they could go home and continue raising their children and being in their family and being with their loved one, I was delighted to do that. And again, I felt like a lot of times it was like, well, if I have a guilty person and they lose,
00:20:25
Speaker
Well, the state did their job. If they win, good for the person, right? Yeah. You're absolutely right. I appreciate the question. I mean, the response is that it's up to the government. The government has that obligation to prove innocence or guilt.
00:20:42
Speaker
you're there to represent the client and assert their constitutional rights. I mean, that's what you're there for.
Public Defense Funding Issues
00:20:49
Speaker
Prior to preparing for our interview, I did a quick review of Gideon. The Gideon case, I remember that in law school, but not really. So would you
00:21:04
Speaker
Would you mind just explaining a little bit about it? And in light of the fact that it's a 60th anniversary coming up, so I imagine there are conferences, symposia, I'm sure books about Gideon that are coming out recently.
00:21:22
Speaker
Yeah, so I believe it was 1963, right? The US Supreme Court declared that poor people have a right to an attorney if they are about to face incarceration. And that now we take that for granted. Although I do feel like I need to put a little bit of a caveat in there because I feel like one of the, I think it's easy to congratulate ourselves on the ideal.
00:21:47
Speaker
of giving everyone representation, but the reality is public defenders are woefully underfunded in the United States. And I loved my job as a public defender, but there were days when I would walk into a courtroom and I would have to represent 35 people that day, or I would represent 35 felonies in one week, and I would have one week to prepare
00:22:12
Speaker
or I would have back-to-back rape and carjacking cases every week for a month. And I was doing my darnedest to do a really good job, but there were times when I was ineffective due to the volume of cases I had.
00:22:25
Speaker
And that is the real, and I was at one of the best offices in the, I will say, I was at one of the best offices in the country if I say so. But there are, you know, one of the things that I did was spend time talking to public defenders in counties across Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania is the only state that provides no statewide funding for indigent defense, none. I think maybe they gave like 50,000, but literally no funding.
00:22:52
Speaker
And so these public defenders, Lebanon, Lancaster would have hundreds of cases. They were not able to represent people to the best ability. And so I think it is Gideon presents a wonderful ideal. Everyone has the right to a vigorous attorney. They have the right to be defended by an attorney.
00:23:15
Speaker
But the reality is unless we start committing funding and money, more money to public defenders, that reality is not yet come to pass.
00:23:26
Speaker
I agree with you. What's interesting too about, from my perspective as one who does, whose work is more related to immigration and citizenship is how Gideon as a case has been also utilized in the non-criminal law context that is tied with criminal law and that is immigration law.
00:23:45
Speaker
Within the immigration legal landscape, many scholars and advocates have been asking for the extension of Gideon in removal hearings, deportation hearings. And then it's also been used or argued in the housing context.
00:24:00
Speaker
in landlord-tenant eviction cases. So the idea is a profoundly important one. But at the end of the day, it does come down to money, the type of support that one would get from the state or from nonprofit organizations, but really the state and the responsibility of the criminal justice system to ensure that there is adequate representation, effective representation for individuals who are
00:24:30
Speaker
brought into the criminal justice system. Absolutely.
New Jersey Innocence Project
00:24:34
Speaker
Yeah. Well, let's talk about your work right now at Rutgers Law School. We are so thrilled and really privileged to have you as a colleague. Let's first talk about the Innocence Project. Tell us about the project itself.
00:24:51
Speaker
Well, I must say I feel incredibly lucky to be here. This is a very exciting project. It was conceived in 2018 as a cross-campus multidisciplinary effort by
00:25:09
Speaker
I want to say a cohort of just amazing, brilliant women who put together from forensic science, the Newark Law School, Camden School of Social Work,
00:25:23
Speaker
criminal justice, sort of really thinking collaboratively about how to put this together. And until this point, there was no Innocence Project Network organization dedicated to looking at Innocence claims in New Jersey. I will say there are other organizations that sort of look nationwide, but this was really
00:25:43
Speaker
I do think there was a great need for it and these women recognized it and created this project. And I also want to say thanks to, became possible thanks to the generous donation of a family foundation and also thanks to Chancellor Tillis who helped, you know, gave us the starting funds to make this possible.
00:26:08
Speaker
So I came in in September of this year, so a few months ago, and started putting together an intake process to go through a lot of the mail that we have already received and to start looking at the letters that are, I will say, are coming in daily. And so we established a criteria. We're working in close collaboration with the
00:26:36
Speaker
National Innocence Network, which is the Innocence Project in New York has a network that sort of oversees Innocence projects all across the country I don't want to say overseas but helps sort of helps facilitate these networks and they provided a wonderful amount of support and so
00:27:01
Speaker
Yeah, so we're working in very close collaboration with them and also with some of the other wonderful network organizations that are close by. Pennsylvania Innocence Project has been amazing as has like California, Florida, all been really generous in giving support and advice to help our intake process get up and running. I know I'm going to forget some
00:27:29
Speaker
critical names from the law school and Rutgers University that made this possible. So Jill Friedman, Kim Mutcherson, my co-dean, and then my colleague, Laura Cohen, who I think you're working closely with. Tell me about that collaboration. Oh, my gosh. Yes. So Laura Cohen, I'm going to start. I can't say badass on that. So you can cut that, Nate. You just did.
00:27:59
Speaker
So Laura Cohen is a total badass. She has literally, I mean, she has done innocence work.
00:28:08
Speaker
She has assisted with the exoneration of many people, working with Hugh Burton, has also run an amazing clinical at Newark for, I want to say over a decade, ran the juvenile defender. I mean, Laura's career is amazing and has an incredible wealth of knowledge. So I am actually, she is supervising all of the work that we are doing right now.
00:28:34
Speaker
And I feel incredibly lucky to be working in collaboration with her and just with her knowledge and expertise and assistance. Jill Friedman, also an amazing lady, our pro bono public interest dean here, has done phenomenal work.
00:28:55
Speaker
Also, former public defender has done phenomenal work recruiting people, setting up the program, developing the contacts, and is wonderful in terms of assisting with the sort of writing and the project. Dean Mucheson has also given amazing support. And then I also want to shout out Kimberly Moran, who is a forensic scientist.
00:29:16
Speaker
who has done wonderful, you know, one of the things that we are, will continue to do is review forensic science claims as they come in, arson, fingerprints, ballistics, all of these quote unquote forensic sciences have serious issues and she can help us sort of review claims as they come in, Jane Siegel,
00:29:37
Speaker
I forget Jean's official title. I want to see she's the undergraduate dean, but that's not right. I'm blanking on her title, but she's done phenomenal work in the criminal justice field, worked with incarcerated women for many years, and has also given support. I also want to thank Kevin Murphy, an investigator who's providing assistance and helping us with some of the investigative work that needs to be done for the project.
00:30:03
Speaker
You know, in the social work school, Sarah Plummer, who helped sort of get this up and running, as well as Muriel and Nakia Barksdale's former students at Rutgers.
00:30:15
Speaker
What I really appreciate about the project, well, there are many, one is that it's interdisciplinary.
Systemic Racism and Wrongful Convictions
00:30:23
Speaker
The kind of work that we need to do in order to ensure that those who are innocent and wrongfully convicted are free requires the expertise of not only lawyers, but forensic scientists and investigators
00:30:39
Speaker
So it's such a great collaboration. The other thing that I really appreciate about this project is that it's across campus. Rutgers Law School has two locations, and most of our clinics are either in Newark or in Camden. But this Innocence Project is one of those crossovers that allows us, you in Camden, Laura in Newark, and Jill in
00:31:03
Speaker
in Camden to be able to work collaboratively on these issues. And that's important to me because it's
00:31:11
Speaker
It's part of the overall goal of the law school as a merged institution to be able to rely on our expertise and our time and resources to be able to help people. So I'm glad that you have chosen to come to Rutgers to be able to do this kind of work. I'd like to go a little bit deeper into the work that you're doing. Is it possible to share a story of a
00:31:40
Speaker
of a client. Of course, you can't say anything that is confidential. But I just wonder if there's a way for you to explain to us just the kind of compelling issues that you all deal with just so we can better understand why the Innocence Project is such an essential project. Before I answer that question, I want to just go back to something you said, because I feel like I wanted to just sort of
00:32:09
Speaker
put a point or a pin in that in addition to being, in addition to assisting innocent people who are perhaps one of the most vulnerable people oppressed by the criminal justice system, I hope that this project will also, and I know that it will, will also provide training opportunities for students across the board.
00:32:29
Speaker
I think it's going to be important for anyone involved in the criminal justice system, whether it's criminal defense or law enforcement, to really understand the causes of wrongful convictions. And so to be training our students, our forensic science students and our lawyers,
00:32:45
Speaker
I'm hoping that this will also serve that purpose as well. Wait, so pause then. Can I ask you, I want to follow up on that. This is the right time to bring it up. It's unfortunate that we're once again seeing just how
00:33:03
Speaker
The criminal justice system is with the death of Tyre Nichols. And so there are many ways that we can talk about the systemic racism that we're experiencing through the criminal justice system.
00:33:21
Speaker
as we know, experienced more specifically by black men and black women and brown individuals and others. And so it's critical to recognize that and to acknowledge that and to see where the Innocence Project fits in within that larger goal of addressing and trying to do away with this incredibly difficult project of
00:33:49
Speaker
Dealing with systemic racism in the criminal justice system. So I wanted to make sure that that was that I was clear About that and and so with that in mind then within this our understanding that the criminal justice system is it is what it is and that his systemically there are there's racism at different stages and so
00:34:15
Speaker
What are some of the, what, in your own work right now at this project, where is that work towards addressing racism in this, in the larger criminal justice system? Where does that, how are you involved?
00:34:30
Speaker
in dealing with those critical problems. I do believe that innocence work is racial justice work because black men are more likely to be convicted of sexual assault, like eight times more likely. There's something like 19 times more likely to be convicted of drug crimes than they, so they're actually convicted of drug crimes when they are innocent. So every single step of the
00:34:55
Speaker
criminal justice system, black men and black women and brown men and brown women are more vulnerable. They are more likely to be stopped. They're more likely to be attacked. They're more likely to be killed. They're more likely to be convicted for something they didn't do. And I saw this clearly as a public defender. My clients were almost all black and brown. They were all poor. And so we have, I think, of the exonerees, something
00:35:22
Speaker
wildly disproportionate number of the exonerated people have all been black, and these are DNA exonerations. So we know that between 2 and 10% of all convictions are wrongful, and that's a low estimate. And so if we think about the number of people that are sitting in jail for something they didn't do, the vast majority of those people are black and brown, and getting them out of jail is crucial.
00:35:45
Speaker
But I think that it has to come as part of this larger conversation. I think we can't just say, oh, well, we'll get the innocent people out and then everything will be fixed. And that's absolutely not the case unless we think structurally about the way in which our system is oppressing these communities from start to finish. What a critically engaged opportunity for our students to be able to work with you and Laura in these cases.
00:36:13
Speaker
So now if we can just turn to giving some examples that you're able to share, that would be helpful. You know, it's tricky. I actually just was talking with Jill about this. We're receiving hundreds of letters and new letters are coming in every day. I can't...
00:36:34
Speaker
share those letters. I can't share the content of those letters, but many of them are heartbreaking and the reality is we can only take a very small number of people. I do want to, you know, I can speak, I can speak to, I know Laura, I want to say Hugh Burton is a horrific example of someone who was exonerated after over 20 years, I think about 20,
00:37:04
Speaker
1920 years of incarceration for a false confession, convicted of a murder he did not commit. And I don't want to speak for Laura's case, but you know, we see, we see so many, so many cases like this, and then also so many cases where people are not necessarily factually innocent, but there are
00:37:31
Speaker
really troubling they received a sentence that was disproportionate to the crime they committed they might have committed a robbery with no weapon and they're serving 50 years of incarceration for that robbery or they weren't or they were involved in an abusive relationship and as a result of that abusive relationship committed a crime and now are serving time for that there are
00:37:57
Speaker
And then there are lots of allegations of factual innocence that we need to go through very carefully, look at what happened. The other issue we see come up time and time again is the issue of eyewitness identification or misidentification. This is another arena where racism is, I don't want to say it's necessarily racism, a misidentification.
00:38:21
Speaker
We all have own race bias. It is very difficult to correctly identify someone of another race. And what we see as a result is white victims, particularly white victims of sexual assault, and black men are convicted of that sexual assault. And that is not always the person who was the actual perpetrator of the assault. I know that Jennifer Picking Cotton, the book by Jennifer
00:38:46
Speaker
I want to say blanking on her last name and Reginald Cotton, who was convicted of a rape that he did not commit, is another example of misidentification in the instance of sexual assault.
00:38:58
Speaker
So yeah, we're reading a lot of very heartbreaking letters right now. Yes. At the same time, I recall it was in 2019 when Laura talked to the faculty about the work that she did on behalf of Hugh Barton, who, as he said, was falsely accused of killing his mother.
00:39:21
Speaker
when he was 16 years old and the police obtained from him a false confession. I mean, he was 16 years old. How could he have known?
Impact of Innocence Work
00:39:30
Speaker
He was under a lot of pressure from the police and he just lost his mother. And so I recall many of us in the faculty had tears in our eyes when after Laura shared with us that she was able to
00:39:46
Speaker
with other lawyers, Barry Schenck and Susan Friedman of the Innocence Project and others at Northwestern, Pitzer at the School of Law there, how they collectively they work together to obtain Hugh Burton's freedom. And that's the kind of work that is essential, really critical here in New Jersey.
00:40:11
Speaker
And at the time I thought that we did have an innocence project. I had no idea that New Jersey was the only state that did not have one. And so that's why we are here at Rutgers are just, it feels so privileged to finally be able to
00:40:30
Speaker
launch this project here with you and with Laura and others who are working together to do innocence work because it is so needed in our state. So I'd like to pause a little bit. You've done such amazing work in the criminal justice field and you knew from law school that that's what you wanted to do.
Advice for Aspiring Lawyers
00:40:53
Speaker
You said earlier that you enjoyed law school, you had the support of friends.
00:40:58
Speaker
Can you think of some advice that you would give to yourself? I mean, sounds like you had a great experience, but is there anything that you would tell your younger self about your future as a public defender or doing criminal justice work? This is in light of a conversation that I was just having with colleagues.
00:41:23
Speaker
former defender colleagues. It's important to recognize when you need to step away. I loved my work, but it
00:41:33
Speaker
you are also engaged in facing the trauma of the system every day. And you are facing terrible things happening to people over and over and over again. And you're facing your clients being brutalized in many different ways over and over. And it is exhausting to do that work day in and day out. And so to recognize when you need to really step away and take time off
00:42:02
Speaker
do what you need to do.
00:42:04
Speaker
know that burnout is real and to acknowledge that. And so I think as public defenders, what happens to our clients is often so awful that we can sometimes forget that if you don't really focus, and I don't want to say self-care because I don't think that's necessarily the right term either, but to recognize that sometimes you need to take care of yourself in ways to support yourself and to really
00:42:34
Speaker
take time out, step away, disconnect, do whatever it is that you need to do to make sure that you preserve yourself as well. Because I think that that can easily be forgotten when we are when public defenders are dealing with just the onslaught of
00:42:52
Speaker
terrible things that are happening to your clients. I mean, you wind up really caring about your clients. And, you know, I will say I never got to trial and I didn't really, it was, I liked my clients and you don't want bad things to happen to them. And yet bad things happen to your clients every day. And so navigating that difficulty and knowing that it's hard, you know, this is, I've loved the work I did. I felt grateful for the work I did.
00:43:19
Speaker
But you will lose a lot as a public defender, and it is not easy. And so understanding that ahead of time is something I wish I'd given myself a little bit more permission to just be like, yeah, this is really hard.
00:43:33
Speaker
That is a really important message here that you're giving to yourself. But I also ask that question because we have lost students and potential lost students who are listening to this podcast. And I want them to think about the importance of self-preservation. And I do think self-care is necessary. As a lawyer, in order to continue to be effective,
00:43:58
Speaker
One needs to take a step back and get some sleep, eat well, go to the gym, go to the movies, right? And because work will be there all the time and one needs to be able to step away from work. I'm saying this as someone who I struggle with the work-life balance all the time and it's an ongoing project that I think many lawyers have. We need to pay attention to the signs of exhaustion and burnout
00:44:26
Speaker
to make sure that we take care of ourselves and reach out. We go to someone for help, right? If you can talk to a colleague and then supervisor just to see how you can continue to do the work that you want to be able to do. And so I'm really glad that you, I appreciate that you shared that advice. And I hope that those who are listening to us is taking that seriously.
00:44:50
Speaker
Well, we are almost at the top of the hour, Nisa. I am so grateful again to you for making time for us to talk about your work in the Innocence Project, the work that you've done prior to coming to Rutgers Law School. Here's one last question that relates to self-care and self-preservation. What do you do for fun?
Personal Interests and Closing Remarks
00:45:19
Speaker
Well, let's see. I think I feel like I do. I read a lot of trashy sci-fi novels. I read a lot. I read a lot of novels in general. Oh, yeah. It wasn't so like I don't know romantic novels or sci-fi. Really more like sci-fi. Like I've just been on Octavia Butler binge. Not that that's like really self-care, but she's amazing. I
00:45:44
Speaker
You know, running a lot is really helpful. Like, I don't know what I would do if I didn't, if I wasn't able to, I mean, I would figure something else out, but exercise has definitely been like a very important part of that, as well as having like a wonderful family and friends and, you know, seeing them and spending time with them as well.
00:46:05
Speaker
Okay. Well, great on that happy note. Thank you for joining us and I look forward to seeing you again very soon. Thank you.
00:46:16
Speaker
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