UMD News Releases

DULUTH, MN – Duluth, MN – On Monday, April 20, 2015 at 7 pm in Bohannon 90 at the University of Minnesota Duluth, Associate Professor of Sociology-Anthropology Scott Vollum will moderate a discussion panel, entitled Failures of Justice: Wrongful Conviction and The Death Penalty. This event is free and open to the public.

Nate Fields, who was sentenced to death for a crime he didn't commit, will speak about his exoneration after two decades on death row. Terri Steinberg, the mother of a death row inmate, will speak about her son who remains in prison in spite of his case being thrown out due to innocence. Death penalty appellate attorney Steven Kaplan will discuss how he successfully defended and exonerated a death row inmate.

“Even though Minnesota does not have it, the death penalty is a sanction that exists in the U.S. and thus impacts all U.S. citizens,” Vollum says. “Examining the death penalty, and particularly the problems and injustices associated with wrongful convictions and errors in its application, sheds light on problems inherent in the criminal justice system throughout the U.S. Something as final and grave as the death penalty brings these issues and problems into sharp relief.”