When I walked into the room on Tuesday to hear our guest speaker, I was initially shocked at how young he looked. My friend and I began to discuss how this was possible, and then we realized that he must have been convicted at an extremely young age. As Terrill commenced his presentation, he shared that he had been wrongfully convicted at the age of 17. This is a scary concept to think about, because being 17, if the police told me that I could leave and go with my mom just by signing a paper I would probably do it.
I think one thing that was interesting, was how he had us write our names then sign our names next to it. I didn't even think twice about doing this, and didn't even review what exactly I was signing. It's scary to think how naive 17 year olds can be, and how much weight a signature can carry.
I was also shocked by how much injustice our legal system had done Terrill and how it isn't fair that the people that wrongfully convicted him don't have to suffer any consequences for their actions or inaction's. I think to make our legal system more just and to reduce the number of wrongful convictions that occur in our nation, we need to have a repercussion for officials who wrongfully convict an innocent person or for police who talk someone into signing their life away without being aware, or for police who bully false confessions out of people. In order for this to stop, we need to have punishments for those who do wrong.
I really enjoyed hearing Terrill speak and I think that the real world application was extremely interesting and relevant.
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