So, imagine that you take a 19-hour, very long drive to Disney World, with two kids in the back seat. And 15 minutes into this 19-hour trip, the immutable laws of nature dictate that you get the question: "Are we there yet?"
想象你用了19小时, 开车去迪斯尼, 两个孩子坐在车后座。 在这 19 小时的行程中, 每隔 15 分钟, 你都会被问同一个问题: “我们还没有到吗?”
(Laughter)
(笑)
So you answer this question a hundred more times, easily, in the negative, but you finally arrive. You have a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful trip. You drive 19 long hours back home. And when you get there, the police are waiting on you. They accuse you of committing a crime that occurred while you were away in Florida. You tell anybody and everybody who will listen, "I didn't do it! I couldn't have done it! I was hanging out with Mickey and Minnie and my kids!" But no one believes you. Ultimately, you're arrested, you're tried, you're convicted and you are sentenced. And you spend 25 years in jail, until someone comes along and proves -- has the evidence to prove -- that you actually were in Florida when this crime was committed. So.
你要回答上百次,简单的说, “还没有”, 最后终于到达了。 你的旅行非常精彩。 之后开车 19 小时回到家。 当你到家时, 警察在等你。 他们指控你犯罪了, 那时候你还在佛罗里达。 你竭力想要告诉每个人, “我什么也没有做! 我怎么会做这个! 我和米老鼠唐老鸭 还有我的孩子在一起!” 没人相信你。 最后,你被捕了, 被审判, 被定罪, 被判刑。 你需要在监狱里呆 25 年, 直到有人替你证明—— 有证据证明—— 案发时,你的确 人在佛罗里达。 就是这样。
So, I'm a Harvard Law professor, and the last several years, I have worked on winning the release of innocent people who've been wrongfully convicted -- people like Jonathan Fleming, who spent 24 years, eight months in jail for a murder that was committed in Brooklyn, New York, while he was in Disney World with his kids. How do we know this? Because when he was arrested, among his property in his back pocket was a receipt -- time-stamped receipt that showed that he was in Disney World. That receipt was put in the police file, a copy of it was put in the prosecutor's file, and they never gave it to his public defender. In fact, nobody even knew it was there. It just sat there for 20-some-odd years. My team looked through the file, and we found it, did the rest of the investigation, and figured out someone else committed the crime. Mr. Fleming was in Disney World, and he is now released.
我是哈佛大学的一位法律教授, 过去几年,我一直致力于 帮助被误判的无辜人员 被无罪释放—— 比如 Jonathan Fleming, 因为发生在纽约布鲁克林区 的一桩谋杀案,在监狱里 呆了 24 年零 8 个月, 而案发时他正在迪斯尼乐园, 和孩子们在一起。 我们如何知道的? 因为当他被捕时, 在他的后口袋中 有一张收据。 盖有时间印章的收据, 显示他就在迪斯尼乐园。 收据放在警察局档案袋中, 收据复印件在检察官的档案袋中, 他们从没有拿出来给公设辩护人看。 实际上,根本没有人知道 这个收据的存在, 它在档案中被封存了 20 多年。 我的团队审查案卷时发现了它, 完成了调查, 发现了真正的罪犯。 Fleming 先生当时在迪斯尼, 如今他被释放了。
Let me give you a little bit of context. So about three years ago, I got a call from the Brooklyn District Attorney. He asked whether I'd be interested in designing a program called a "conviction review unit." So I said yes. A conviction review unit is essentially a unit in a prosecutor's office where prosecutors look at their past cases to determine whether or not they made mistakes. Over the course of the first year, we found about 13 wrongful convictions, people having been in jail for decades, and we released all of them. It was the most in New York history. The program is still going on, and they're up to 21 releases now -- 21 people who spent significant time behind bars.
让我再多介绍一点。 3 年前,Brooklyn 地区检察官电话我, 问我是否有兴趣设计一个项目, 叫“定罪重审小组”。 我同意了。 定罪重审小组是 检察官办公室的一个部门, 检察官会重看以前的案子, 判断是否有错误。 在第一年, 我们发现 13 个错误定罪, 这些人已经入狱几十年了, 我们协助释放了他们。 这是纽约历史之最。 该项目还在继续中, 已有 21 人被释放—— 这 21 人都在监狱待了很多年。
So let me tell you about a couple other of the men and women that I interacted with in the course of this program. One name is Roger Logan. Mr. Logan had been in jail 17 years and wrote me a letter. It was a simple letter; it basically said, "Professor Sullivan, I'm innocent. I've been framed. Can you look at my case?" At first blush, the case seemed like it was open and shut, but my research had shown that single-witness identification cases are prone to error. It doesn't mean he was innocent, it just means we ought to look a little bit closer at those cases.
我要给你们说说我在这个项目中 所接触到的几个人的故事。 有一个人叫 Roger Logan, 他被判入狱 17 年, 他给我写了一封信。 信的内容很简单,说的是, “Sullivan 教授,我是无辜的, 我被陷害了。 你能重新看我的案卷吗?” 咋一看,案子的判决似乎无可争议, 但我的调查显示, 唯一目击证人作证的案件 通常很容易出错。 不是说他无罪, 而是我们应该更加仔细审核这些案件。
So we did. And the facts were relatively simple. The eyewitness said she heard a shot, and she ran to the next building and turned around and looked, and there was Mr. Logan. And he was tried and convicted and in jail for 17-some-odd years. But it was a single-witness case, so we took a look at it. I sent some people to the scene, and there was an inconsistency. And to put it politely: Usain Bolt couldn't have run from where she said she was to the other spot. Right? So we knew that wasn't true. So it still didn't mean that he didn't do it, but we knew something was maybe fishy about this witness. So we looked through the file, a piece of paper in the file had a number on it. The number indicated that this witness had a record. We went back through 20 years of non-digitized papers to figure out what this record was about, and it turned out -- it turned out -- the eyewitness was in jail when she said she saw what she saw. The man spent 17 years behind bars.
于是我们这样做了。 事实比较简单。 目击证人说她听见枪响, 跑到隔壁楼里,四处查看, 发现 Logan 先生在现场。 他随后被判有罪,需要服刑 17 年。 因为只有一个目击证人, 所以我们仔细查看了案件。 我派了一些人去现场, 发现了矛盾的地方。 客气的说: Usain Bolt 女士不可能从她说的地方 跑到事发现场。 明白吗? 我们知道这不是事实。 我们不是说他没有作案, 但我们认为目击证人可疑。 于是我们全面查看了卷宗, 档案中有张写有号码的纸条, 表明目击者有犯罪记录。 我们重新追溯了 20 年前的纸质文件, 想弄清这个记录到底是什么。 最后我们发现, 当目击人说她在犯罪现场时, 她其实正在监狱里服刑。 这男人在狱中白白待了 17 年。
The last one is a case about two boys, Willie Stuckey, David McCallum. They were arrested at 15, and their conviction was vacated 29 years later. Now this was a case, once again -- first blush, it looked open and shut. They had confessed. But my research showed that juvenile confessions without a parent present are prone to error. The DNA cases proved this several times.
最后一个案子有关两个男孩。 Willie Stuckey 和 Daid McCallum。 他们被捕时 15 岁, 29 年后被无罪释放。 在这个案子中, 再一次,乍一看没有疑点, 他们都认罪。 但我经过研究发现,少年招供时 父母不在场, 他们很容易被误导认罪。 DNA 检测已经多次证实了这个事实。
So we took a close look. We looked at the confession, and it turned out, there was something in the confession that those boys could not have known. The only people who knew it were police and prosecutors. We knew what really happened; someone told them to say this. We don't exactly know who, which person did, but any rate, the confession was coerced, we determined. We then went back and did forensics and did a fulsome investigation and found that two other, much older, different heights, different hairstyle, two other people committed the crime, not these two boys.
所以我们进行了全面审查。 我们研究了招供书, 结果发现, 在招供书中有些内容 这些男孩并不知情, 只有警察和检察官知情。 真实情况是: 有人指示他们这么做。 我们不知道他们具体是 受了谁的指示。 但无论如何,他们是被逼认罪的, 我们对此确信无疑。 于是我们回头开始取证, 进行了事无巨细的调查, 最后发现是另外两个 年龄更大,有着不同的身高和发型 的人实施了犯罪, 而不是这两个男孩。
I actually went to court that day, for what's called a "vacatur hearing," where the conviction is thrown out. I went to court; I wanted to see Mr. McCallum walk out of there. So I went to court, and the judge said something that judges say all the time, but this took on a really special meaning. He looked up after the arguments and said, "Mr. McCallum," he said five beautiful words: "You are free to go." Can you imagine? After just about 30 years: "You are free to go." And he walked out of that courtroom.
我当天出席了 “Vacatur 听证会”, 罪名当场被推翻。 我想亲眼看着 McCallum 先生走出法庭。 于是我去了法庭, 法官说了一句 他们经常说的话, 但这次却有非常特殊的意义。 他看完论证结果后, “McCallum先生,” 他说了 5 个漂亮的词: “你现在自由了。” 能想象吗? 在 30 多年后: “你现在自由了。” 他径直走出了法庭。
Unfortunately, his codefendant, Mr. Stuckey, didn't get the benefit of that. You see, Mr. Stuckey died in prison at 34 years old, and his mother sat at counsel table in his place. I'll never forget this the rest of my life. She just rocked at the table, saying, "I knew my baby didn't do this. I knew my baby didn't do this." And her baby didn't do this. Two other guys did it.
不幸的是,他的伙伴,Stuckey 先生 没有等到这一天。 他在 34 岁时 死在了狱中。 他的母亲坐在律师桌边, 他本该坐着的位置上。 我这一生都不会忘记这个时刻, 她在桌子前不停前后摇摆,说道, “我知道我的孩子没有做这种事, 我知道他没做。” 她的孩子的确没有做, 是另外两个人做的。
If there's anything that we've learned, anything that I've learned, with this conviction integrity work, it's that justice doesn't happen. People make justice happen. Justice is not a thing that just descends from above and makes everything right. If it did, Mr. Stuckey wouldn't have died in prison. Justice is something that people of goodwill make happen. Justice is a decision. Justice is a decision. We make justice happen.
如果我们可以从公正定罪 过程中学到什么, 那就是,正义不会自己出现。 要人为创造正义。 司法公正不是自上而下, 让一切都正确。 如果是这样,Stuckey 先生 就不会死在狱中。 正义是 怀有良好意愿的人创造的。 正义是一个决定, 一个决定。 我们决定创造正义。
You know, the scary thing is, in each of these three cases I described, it would have only taken just an extra minute -- an extra minute -- for someone to look through the file and find this receipt. Just one -- to look through the file, find the receipt, give it to the public defender. It would have taken someone just a minute to look at the video confession and say, "That cannot be." Just a minute. And perhaps Mr. Stuckey would be alive today.
可怕的是, 在我描述的 3 个案例中, 只要多花一分钟—— 多花一分钟—— 有人多看一眼案卷, 发现那张收据, 就多看一眼案卷,发现收据, 交给公诉辩护人, 仅仅多花一分钟 看着认罪视频说,“不可能”。 仅仅多花一分钟, 也许 Stuckey 先生今天还活着。
It reminds me of one of my favorite poems. It's a poem that Benjamin Elijah Mays would always recite, and he called it "God's Minute." And it goes something like this: "I have only just a minute, only 60 seconds in it, forced upon me, can't refuse it, didn't seek it, didn't choose it. But it's up to me to use it. I must suffer if I lose it, give account if I abuse it. Just a tiny little minute, but eternity is in it."
这让我联想到我很喜爱的一首诗, Benjamin Elijha Mays 总是引用这首诗, 并把它称为“上帝的一分钟”。 诗是这样的: “我只有一分钟, 60 秒, 强加到我身上,无法拒绝, 我没有寻找它,没有选择它。 但它任我使用。 一旦失去,我将遭受痛苦; 一旦滥用,我将遭受惩罚。 一瞬间 即永恒。”
If I were to charge each and every one of us, I would want to say something like, "Every day, every day, take just one extra minute and do some justice. You don't have to -- I mean, some people spend their careers and their lives, like public defenders, doing justice every day. But in your professional lives, whatever you do, take time out to just do some justice. Make a colleague feel better. If you hear something that's sexist, don't laugh, speak up. If someone is down, lift them up, one extra minute each day, and it'll be a great, great place.
如果我能指控 我们每个人, 我想说, “每一天, 每一天, 多花一分钟 来伸张正义。 你不必 像公诉人一样, 终其一生, 每天都要断案。 但在你的职业生涯中, 无论做什么, 都要留出点儿时间, 为了 声张正义。 让身边的同事感觉好些。 如果你听到有关性别歧视的言论, 不要笑,大声抗议。 如果有人生活不顺,拉他们一把, 每天一分钟, 世界就会变得更美好。
I want to show you something. Now, above me is a picture of David McCallum. This is the day he was released from prison. After 30 years, he got to hug a niece he had never been able to touch before. And I asked him then, I said, "What's the first thing you want to do?" And he said, "I just want to walk on the sidewalk without anybody telling me where to go." Wasn't bitter, just wanted to walk on the sidewalk.
大家可以看看 我头顶上这张照片, 这个人是 David McCallum。 这天他出狱了。 时隔 30 年,他第一次拥抱了自己 从未见过的侄女。 我问他, “你最想做的第一件事是什么?” 他回答,“我想在人行道上走走, 不需要别人告诉我该去哪里。” 多简单, 想走在人行道上。
I spoke to Mr. McCallum about two weeks ago. I went to New York. It was on the two-year anniversary of his release. And we talked, we laughed, we hugged, we cried. And he's doing quite well. And one of the things he said when we met with him is that he now has dedicated his life and his career to ensuring that nobody else is locked up unjustly.
两周前,我和 Mccallum 先生谈了一次话, 我去了纽约, 那是在他出狱的 两周年纪念日。 我们一起聊天, 欢笑,拥抱,哭泣。 他很好。 见面时,他说了一件事, 从现在开始,他会奉献自己的一生, 奉献自己的职业生涯, 确保不再有人被不公平对待。
Justice, my friends, is a decision.
声张正义,我的朋友们, 这是一个决定。
Thank you very much.
谢谢你们。
(Applause)
(鼓掌)