06 Oct Sydney Ideas | Wrongful Conviction and Truth

When does evidence obscure the truth? Join us for a forum on the avoidable causes of wrongful conviction.

Wrongful convictions can and do happen – it’s a sad fact of the Australian legal system. This panel will look at how evidence in legal proceedings can inadvertently support false conclusions if handled by non-experts (as is usually the case). Panel members are associate lecturer in psychology Celine van Golde, barrister and senior lecturer in law Miiko Kumar, both of the ‘Not Guilty’ project at the University of Sydney, and professional linguist Helen Fraser, of Forensic Phonetics Australia. They will present real-life cases in which errors, by eyewitnesses, police, prosecutors, and other experts led to people spent years in jail following unfair trials. With reference to their ongoing research on human perception and memory they then ask: what can we do to prevent future miscarriages of justice?

Speakers:

• Dr Celine Van Golde, Forensic Psychology Lab, School of Psychology, Faculty of Science
• Dr Helen Fraser, specialist in cognitive phonetics
• Miiko Kumar, Barrister and a Senior Lecturer in the University of Sydney Law School