By Audrey Redmond
San Francisco champions Ronnie Lott (right) and Harris Barton entertain the crowd at the 2016 Justice for All Awards Dinner. Photo: Greg Pio
An exuberant group of nearly 300 supporters came together on March 17 to honor 11 exonerees and other justice champions at NCIP’s 2016 Justice for All Awards Dinner. The annual fundraising dinner serves as a platform to showcase the inspiring stories of individuals who regained their freedom with the help of NCIP, its partners, and advocates.
Former San Francisco 49ers champions Ronnie Lott and Harris Barton, who hosted the evening, kicked it off by encouraging guests to really celebrate the moments of the evening – the victories that were achieved together. “Tonight is about celebrating these moments,” said Lott.
The 2016 Leadership Award was presented to NCIP advisory board member Elizabeth Zitrin for her global leadership on issues of criminal justice reform and the death penalty. In accepting the award, Zitrin said, “There are no voices and no cause more powerful than the message of innocence betrayed. There is no greater injustice, no greater injury, no greater wrong routinely dismissed and ignored… And NCIP … and the entire innocence network bring this justice. “
Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP Partners Patrick King and Jason Bussey received the Pro Bono Award. Under their leadership, the firm has devoted thousands of hours to NCIP on several cases. King talked about his experience helping exonerate Jimmy Dick, and declared that while he accepted the award on behalf of Simpson Thacher, “the real honor is the opportunity to work beside the attorneys and staff at the [Northern California] Innocence Project, who I hope to have the opportunity to work with for many many years.”
Bussey explained that his work on innocence cases made him appreciate how much harder it is to get an innocent person out of prison than it is to put them in. “You don’t take on these type of cases because they’re easy, and you don’t take on these types of cases because you like to win,” he said. “You do this type of work because it matters and because it’s important.”
Prominent Defense Attorney Dean Strang speaks to the audience after accepting NCIP’s 2016 Champion of Justice Award. Photo: Steve Cozart
The Champion of Justice Award went to prominent defense attorney Dean Strang, who was the trial lawyer for Steven Avery featured in the Netflix documentary series Making a Murderer. Strang, who has worked for years to protect the presumption of innocence, declared that he should be giving NCIP the award for being “the unsworn believers in justice who cling tenaciously to the ideal of our justice system.…”
NCIP exoneree Maurice Caldwell was the recipient of the Cookie Ridolfi Freedom Award. Caldwell, who was exonerated in 2011, has since become an activist for the innocence movement. He told supporters that although he spent “20 years, six months and four days” wrongly imprisoned, he never gave up faith that he’d be exonerated. He thanked supporters, declaring, “You all inspire me. When I was sitting in prison for many years I didn’t know … it was people like you all fighting the fight. And for that I am so honored to continue doing what I need to do to make a [innocence] movement that is meaningful.”
NCIP Executive Director Hadar Harris thanked supporters and urged them to continue their advocacy. “We have an opportunity to make real systemic change,” she said. “People are talking about wrongful convictions. People are talking about the need for criminal justice reform. This is our moment to create a movement of people who advocate zealously for criminal justice reform.”
NCIP extends a huge thank you to the honorees, speakers, sponsors, and guests for making it such an extraordinary evening! View the photo gallery here.
