On Tuesday, October 21 at 5:00pm in the Great Hall of the Turner Law Building, the NCCU Law Innocence Project and Death Penalty Project will co-sponsor a program, “Innocence on Death Row: The Case of Henry McCollum and Leon Brown.” The NCCU community, alumni/ae and the public are invited to attend.
In September of this year, Leon Brown and Henry McCollum were released from prison after serving 30 years, McCollum on death row, for crimes they did not commit. Brown and McCollum were convicted in 1983 of the brutal rape and murder of an 11 year old girl in Robeson County. For years, the mentally disabled half-brothers maintained their innocence, claiming that their confessions were coerced by the police. Last month they were exonerated at a hearing before a Superior Court Judge, at which the North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission presented DNA evidence linking another man to the crime.
Speakers will include Attorney W. James Payne, counsel for Leon Brown, and Attorney Sharon Stellato, NCCU Law ’06, Associate Director of the North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission. They will discuss the 1983 investigation and trial of Brown and McCollum, factors leading to their being convicted despite their innocence, and the subsequent investigation by the Innocence Inquiry Commission that led to the discovery of DNA evidence pointing to the
real perpetrator.
There will be a reception from 5:00-5:30 in the Great Hall prior to the program, which will run from 5:30-6:30.
More information about this case can be found at the following link:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/03/us/2-convicted-in-1983-north-carolina-murder-freed-after-dna-tests.html?_r=0
This event is free and open to the public. For more information, contact Ashley Hilliard 2016 (ahilliar@eagles.nccu.edu), Kiarra Brown 2016 (kbrow157@eagles.nccu.edu) or Pro Bono Program Director, Page Potter (ppotter@nccu.edu).