de Saisset hosts Innocence Project
By Maggie Beidelman
Imagine spending monotonous decades in a cramped jail, barred from the real world after being wrongfully humiliated and convicted of a crime you didn't commit.
Such is the experience of a group of innocent people, who, with recent DNA testing through the Innocence Project, have recently been exonerated.
The Innocence Project is a national program designed to free wrongfully convicted prisoners.
Starting on May 2, the de Saisset Museum will feature two exhibits showing portraits of one-time convicts recently vindicated and freed.
"The Innocents" consists of 45 headshots by photographer Taryn Simon of New York.
Simon focuses on humanizing those who were unjustly jailed, and the impact is achieved by the sheer number of faces captured by her camera.
"A Life Reclaimed," by San Francisco-based photographer Vance Jacobs, follows the story of one man, Alan Crotzer, and his return to society after nearly 25 years in a Florida prison.
Crotzer was wrongfully convicted in 1981 by an all-white jury for robbery, kidnapping and rape.
He was sentenced to 130 years in prison, despite the absence of solid evidence against him and the defense's presentation of four alibi witnesses who could account for his whereabouts at the time of the crime.
Nearly 25 years later, after extensive DNA testing, Crotzer was finally proven innocent of the rapes and was released from prison.
Jacobs was asked to photograph Crotzer's release and return to his family, and he felt it important to remain with Crotzer in order to assist him in re-assimilating into society.
"It's one of the biggest injustices to rob these people of their life," said Jacobs.
After documenting Crotzer's release, Jacobs provided transportation for Crotzer to get new ID and meet up with family members, doing his best to help fill in the quarter-of-a-century gap that had cheated Crotzer out of so much of his life.
Crotzer will be taking an airplane -- for the first time in his life -- to the San Jose International Airport next week, in order to participate in the panel discussion "Representing Innocence," which will be held on Thursday, May 4, at 7 p.m.
Jacobs remarked that it's amazing to meet the exonerees who will be at the panel discussion because "they're not so different from you and me."
They were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. And, said Jacobs, "For how many hours or days could someone afford a good lawyer?"
"Barred from Life," a poignant dance interpretation of such experiences, will be held prior to the panel on Wednesday, May 3, at 7 p.m.
The program, choreographed and performed by dance professor David Popalisky, combines dance, video imagery and excerpts from video interviews with several exonerees.
Its purpose is to pull the audience in to witness the reality of the mental frustration and pain that innocent convicts experience. Admission is free.
The exhibits, dance performance and panel discussion are presented in part by the Northern California Innocence Project, which is a branch of the national Innocence Project based at Santa Clara University.
This branch of the project, which Cookie Ridolfi and Linda Starr began in 2001, is a collaborative effort by pro bono lawyers and Santa Clara law students to try to prove the innocence of Northern California inmates through DNA testing and new (or newly admissible) evidence.
"I've seen some of these photos," said project director Cookie Ridolfi, "and they're unbelievably moving. It's a wonderful opportunity to get a sense of the people behind the headlines -- who these exonerees truly are."
Contact Maggie Beidelman at (408) 551-1918 or mbeidelman@scu.edu.