University of Tampa senior Gretchen Cothron has launched a nonprofit organization called “Screaming for Sunshine” to help investigate wrongful convictions.
Cothron is an honors student, with a major in criminology and minor in law and justice.
Last year, she completed a project to demonstrate the necessity of recording interrogations during investigation, which isn’t required in Hillsborough County. Last month she presented her findings at the National Collegiate Honors in Washington, D.C.
After her work last year, she moved into an honors fellowship “…researching a statistical formula to see how eyewitness testimony, faulty forensic science and false confessions contribute to wrongful convictions,” according to the University of Tampa web site.
“Cothron has presented her preliminary findings at the Southern Criminal Justice Association’s annual conference and is presenting an extension of the same project at the American Society of Criminology’s annual meeting in November,” the UT site said.
“Cothron hopes to practice criminal appellate law after law school to help fund her real passion, a nonprofit she has formed called Screaming for Sunshine to assist with investigations of wrongful convictions.
“Florida leads the nation in the number of death-row exonerations,” Cothron said, “and there has to be countless others.”
Cothron’s nonprofit site here.
Story here.
For the tip on this, thanks to Glenn S. Dardick, Ph.D., Associate Prof. of Information Systems at Longwood Univ. in Farmville, Va. He’s also the Director of the Association for Digital Forensics, Security and Law and editor of the Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law.