Duke University Talent Identification Program Summer Institute

During a two-week summer program, approximately thirty high school students in the Duke University Talent Identification Program are introduced to the workings of the U.S. criminal justice system, viewed through the lens of wrongful convictions. Through classroom activities, speaker presentations, group discussions, and course readings, students examine, from an interdisciplinary perspective, the principal problems that lead to the conviction of the innocent and the leading proposals for reform. Topics covered include mistaken eyewitness identification; false confessions; junk forensic science; post-conviction remedies for innocence claims; the use of "jailhouse snitches" and cooperating witnesses; insufficient defense and appellate counsel; police and prosecutorial misconduct; and the legal, practical, and ethical issues that arise in investigating claims of wrongful conviction. Students also work on an actual investigation of a claim of innocence, resulting in a final case review memorandum.

To learn more about what happens daily at the TIP program, click here for an article about the 2008 program.