Coordinator:  Ms Vanessa Stafford    Telephone:  83441137    Office:   Room 0837    Email:   Click here to email Vanessa Stafford

 

Prerequisites and/or Corequisites

Prerequisites: Criminal Law and Procedure I, Criminal Law and Procedure II, Evidence

This subject has a quota of 16 students

Other selection criteria: Students will be required to complete a written application for admission to this subject. The application will address the following criteria: academic performance, relevant work experience (including involvement in community-based activities), teamwork experience and skills, relevance of student's career goal to the overall goals of the Innocence Project and capacity and willingness to commit to the significant time demands of this subject. Interviews may also be conducted.

Students who are most advanced in their studies will be given priority for admission to the subject. The subject will be available to all University of Melbourne Law students.

Description

The Melbourne University Innocence Project has been established to assist in identifying and freeing innocent people who have been wrongly convicted of criminal offences. It is modeled on other successful LLB subjects in universities in Australia and North America. It provides an international perspective on wrongful conviction and highlights the interaction between science, psychology and criminal law. By working to identify and correct failures in the criminal justice system, the Project will foster a legal culture that champions the goals of defending the innocent and protecting those who are marginalized and oppressed. By working with law students, the Project will invest in lawyers of the future who uphold the value of truth in justice.

Under the supervision of the subject supervisor and working closely with practising lawyers, students will undertake research on selected case files and will evaluate new evidence in an attempt to identify and to contribute to the task of exonerating persons who have been wrongly convicted. All professional case file management decisions and selection of files for consideration will be the responsibility of the subject coordinator in consultation with practising lawyers and other selected advisors and experts. The Melbourne Innocence Project will not operate as a 'legal clinic' which deals directly with convicted persons. Rather, it will work with and receive referrals from the Victoria Innocence Project, an independent group of solicitors, barristers and former judges. The Victoria Innocence Project has collaborated with the Faculty of Law to establish this subject, and has agreed to continue that collaboration and support in the form of referral of case files, consultation and expert advice.

The intensive nature of this subject will require that students spend considerable non-contact time in team meetings, conducting research, and preparing for interviews, meetings and oral presentations. Students will also be expected to participate in a compulsory intensive introductory program during the week prior to the first week of the semester and, at the end of each semester in which the subject is run in the handover of case files to the next class. The estimated non-contact time is approximately four hours for every one hour of contact time

Points: 12.5

Contact hours: 3 hours per week