What makes for a cool law school professor? Writing a well-acclaimed book? A Socratic questioning method that makes the sheltered book-smart kids you don’t like cry in public? Those don’t hurt, but few things are cooler than a professor who is also battle tested. One of the best unexpected ways for a boring case to gain some pizzazz is to hear that your professor is the one who argued the damned thing. Crim Law students are in luck — one of their professors won an exoneration for a falsely convicted man. NT Daily has coverage:
An innocent man was exonerated last month with the help of UNT Dallas Law Professor Cheryl Wattley after fighting for his innocence for decades… In addition to her position at the law school, Wattley serves as director of clinical education and also founded the Joyce Ann Brown Innocence Clinic to take on innocence claims like [Ben] Spencer’s.
Wattley said Spencer’s freedom was a long time coming, considering all the obstacles leveled at them during the 23 years she has represented him.
One of the glaring issues with Spencer’s case was that a witness was paid $5k-$10k to pin the blame on him. Accounting for inflation, that was about $13k-$26.6k in today’s dollars. A lot of people would lie on the stand for that much! While this netted him a retrial, it didn’t stop him from spending decades behind bars.
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If you’d like to read more about Spencer’s case, there is a deep dive into the facts and circumstances by Barbara Hagerty called Bringing Ben Home: A Murder, A Conviction, and the Fight to Redeem American Justice.
Shouts out to Cheryl Wattley, Gary Udashen, and Cynthia Garza for their amazing work!
NT Dallas Law Professor Wins Exoneration Case Of Ben Spencer, Who Was Falsely Convicted 37 Years Ago [NT Daily]
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Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord™ in the Facebook group Law School Memes for Edgy T14s. He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who cannot swim, a published author on critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email at [email protected] and by tweet at @WritesForRent.